^All were saying is the development in the annexed land in Columbus correlates to whats being done in the suburban rings of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

^All were saying is the development in the annexed land in Columbus correlates to whats being done in the suburban rings of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

 

seems like a reasonably fair assessment (and of course there are exceptions!)

C-bus (like Indy) was helped by all those tax dollars from the rest of the state flowing to the middle. Throw in the fact that Cincinnati was not particularly powerful in C-Bus until the Aronoff was head of the Senate and thus got less money relative to other parts of the state and voila. In C-bus, you have the growth of both state government and THE Ohio State Univ. It isn't the only answer, but it is one significant item that sets those towns apart from C/C/Y/A/T.

"The numbers don't lie: Cincinnati is one of the fastest-shrinking cities in the nation, losing about 1 percent of its population each year. Jobs have been fleeing to the suburbs and across the Ohio River to Kentucky as well.

 

After he took office in 2005, one of the first things Mallory did was to challenge U.S. Census Bureau figures; the census folks added 22,000 back to the city's population."

 

so the numbers did lie?

 

Wow.  That's worse editing and leaning on cliched phrases than what's normally on this forum.

 

And last I checked those riots were all the back in 2001 rather than 2003. This seemed the weakest of the articles in the series. It doesn't have a particularly strong narrative and doesn't seem to reveal much about the city.

 

I guess Columbus pays as little attention to Cincinnati as Cincy does to Columbus.

Actually, yes it is suburban (the annexed development) but no space is not developed.  Columbus would throw as much "tax making" development into the mix as possible.  Office space everywhere was a major part of the suburban areas that columbus developed.  And as much retail space as possible, this is why almost every section of columbus (that was developed post WWII) has about 3 retail strips.  Most suburbs or townships would have had regulations against that level of bigbox/strip mall retail and massive office parks.

 

The annexed areas of Colubumbus focus on office space helped to grow the metro economy.  If these areas were left unannexed there would be lots of "bedroom communities."

 

Also, even though a lot of this development involved retail strip malls and parking lots and office parks, since columbus does control the land, and as the city is moving toward more progressive development standards, the city (a few years from now) could easily adapt the suburban retail corridors to have towers, or multi-use buildings. Atleast the city will be able to transform these areas to adapt them with one focus and goal.  Imagine if a dozen suburbs controlled this suburban land, then it would be much harder to get them to adapt to progressive building and unite.

 

Regarding which comes first the annexation or the development, usually there was a plan for development then Columbus would annex to allow that development to occur.

 

However, that development would, usually, be small in size compared to the area that was being annexed.  There was woods or farms surrounding the rest and then Columbus would use their policies to develop the rest.  Yes, most of the annexed areas developed from the 60s and on are suburban in nature, but it is very middle class/dense suburban development, with a lot of mixed use (even if seperated) that created A LOT of jobs.

 

This is a pretty informative post which explains a lot of what I noticed about Columbus, on how intensley developed its suburbia was...how it does seem more like a Chicago suburb like Schaumburg or that area out around Oakbrook and Butterfield Road in Dupage County. 

 

But was it only Columbus that was facilitating this type of development.  From what I recall Dublin, out along the west side of the beltway, has those Chicago style mid rise suburban office towers. 

 

As for job growth, id think there was some special sauce in the Cols economy that permitted all that office space to be occupied.  It was built on spec, but the developers had to see a developing market for it.

 

I just think Columbus is really special for Ohio.  Maybe a model for other Ohio citys, at least in economic development (certainly in urban development, with Short North, Arena District, that Jeffrey Works redevelopment, and so forth).

 

 

 

 

OHIO CITIES: ON THE BRINK

Youngstown

City finally making peace with loss of big steel

Saturday, December 8, 2007 3:20 AM

By Mark Niquette

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Slide show at:http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/special_reports/stories/2007/cities/youngstown.html

 

YOUNGSTOWN -- Malcolm Henderson remembers the nights when the Casablanca Nite Club across the street really jumped.

 

Count Basie, Ruth Brown, Louis Jordan and other jazz greats played there. But that was maybe 40 years ago, when the orange glow in the sky from the steel-mill blast furnaces meant the economy was booming.

 

That glow is long gone, and for most of the past decade, the Casablanca stood empty, its roof eventually caving in.

 

The city finally demolished the club last year, part of a "shrinking city" concept and its Youngstown 2010 plan to tear down vacant homes or businesses -- and accept being a city with half of the 168,000 residents it had in the 1950s.

 

Read More...

And last I checked those riots were all the back in 2001 rather than 2003. This seemed the weakest of the articles in the series. It doesn't have a particularly strong narrative and doesn't seem to reveal much about the city.

 

I guess Columbus pays as little attention to Cincinnati as Cincy does to Columbus.

 

It has very little to do with paying attention to Cincy...but rather it is about knowing what the heck you are talking about before you write some big story about a city.  Don't speak of which you do not know...this author demonstrated very little knowledge about Cincinnati or the population trends and patterns that exist.  Therefore, they probably should have selected someone else to write this article or at least do some better editing.  Heck you can get better information from most internet sources.

I agree that columbus and cincinnati don't pay much attention to one another, but when you write an article in a newspaper, you are holding yourself out to have more than a layman's knowledge on the subject.

 

Sidebar, I was speaking with a mixed race person who just moved here from new york city (brooklyn).  He said he looked into the riots and they should be called an anti police riot instead of a race riot.  I am inclined to agree

Reporters are rarely from the city in which they report.  The midwestern cities are just a career stop on the way to one of the bigger markets for most of these clowns.  In this case they're reporting just not on the city they're not from that they live and work in, but on a half dozen cities they've hardly visited.  Hundreds of people who post on internet forums like this could write better articles than these writers -- the ability to analyze demographic data, urban histories, etc. seems to be one of the rarest abilities out there and hardly ever seen in mainstream media.  It's about as rare as being able to juggle while riding a unicycle, but whole bunch more relevant.  And the problem is when someone who is knowledgeable speaks up and challenges prevailing sentiments by these kinds they're dismissed as a jester. 

 

Oh, and folks, quit defending Bethel Rd., 161, Sawmill, etc., as though there's something to be admired about these strips. 

 

^ Journalists are usually fairly weak in the math department. No calculus or statistics classes for them!

On the brink: Columbus

The bright spot among Ohio's biggest cities isn't immune to problems and isn't keeping up with its peers nationwide

Sunday,  December 9, 2007 3:22 AM

By Joe Hallett, Alan Johnson and Mark Niquette

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

When it comes to Columbus icons, the late Maynard Edward "Jack" Sensenbrenner stands every bit as tall as the LeVeque Tower.

 

The aggressive growth policy Sensenbrenner spun in motion during a record 14 years as mayor, beginning in 1954, catapulted Columbus from a cowtown with a good football team to a dynamic urban gem that sparkled as its Ohio sister cities rusted.

 

And it still has a good football team.

 

Read More...

 

**********************************************************

 

Poll: Some don't link 'burbs, city

Sunday,  December 9, 2007 3:28 AM

By Darrel Rowland, Alan Johnson and Mark Niquette

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Experts say Ohio's big cities will never get turned around until people who live in the surrounding suburbs and exurbs realize their areas' fates are linked to the health of the core city.

 

Without that understanding, the "why-should-I-care" attitude will not only thwart the cities' comebacks, but will contribute to a spread of urban problems into the very areas people fled to escape them.

 

But only about a third of the people who live in the areas surrounding Columbus buy into this concept, judging from a poll by Saperstein Associates. That portion agrees a "strong link" exists between the health of the city and the health of the rest of central Ohio. Another 36 percent see "somewhat of a link."

 

Read More...

I kind of have a problem with the pessimistic tone of this entire series.  And I've never been able to figure out why there is such optimism in Columbus and it's somehow taboo to be positive about Cincinnati, it reminds me of my 5 years in Tennessee, a state that apparently can do no wrong.  The Tennessee cities never had serious downtowns, still don't, still and never will have serious urban neighborhoods, are spectacularly segregated, etc.  None of them sans Chattanooga are near mountains, yet the mountains loom large in everyone's minds.  I remember an incident where some white country boys pushed a black homeless woman into the Cumberland River near the downtown Nashville entertainment district, where she drowned, and the story was never framed in the racial context that would have set off a firestorm in Ohio.  These days it seems having had a historically weak downtown is an advantage!

 

And for the millionth time, I'll bring up that the arrival of birth control pills and the legalization of abortion happened at the exact time when city populations started declining, and those two phenomena almost single-handedly explain population decline.  I've never seen it brought up in any media outlet and in fact I might put together a guest commentary for The Enquirer in upcoming months that will get talk radio talking. 

 

Decent reporting would have revealed that Cincy and Cbus are more alike than different (save C-bus's ability to annex). The end of the article really gets to the crux of the problem which could be best signified by the immense growth of Delaware, Butler, and Warren Cties. These sprawl counties have captured much of the energy that was once centered in the big cities. The difference is that they have developed almost entirely along the suburban, sprawl anti-urban way instead the higher density urban style in the 3 Cs and Toledo. They have also imbibed an anti-urban ideology at the very core of their cultures. Depending on the price of energy over the next generation, their future could be far more fraught than they realize now.

 

It might be worth pointing out that the growth in office space along the beltways of Ohio's cities mean that living close to a job can mean living in the sprawl 'burbs.

And for the millionth time, I'll bring up that the arrival of birth control pills and the legalization of abortion happened at the exact time when city populations started declining, and those two phenomena almost single-handedly explain population decline.

 

Don't forget about the other side of that equation, immigration. Take a look at cities that have gained population in the past 30 years and immigration is usually a huge factor. Maybe birth control and abortion contributed to the decline but other cities have continued to grow during that same period.

Throw in the dislocation due to the elimination of neighborhoods as the expressway system was sent through the heart of the cities.

Dave I'd hesitate to put the words "excitement" and "Butler County" in the same sentence!  Really I had never been to Fairfield until this past month and I was startled by the Rt. 4 streetscape, which is positively Southern.  The county's population is surging toward 400,000 at which point it will be half the population of Hamilton County and therefore something to be taken a bit more seriously.  Over and over again we encounter this anti-Cincinnati, anti-Hamilton County bias, as though Butler County and Northern Kentucky are run and populated by philosopher-kings.  How can one idle in envy on Rt. 4, gazing across the shallow valley at the fast food, utility poles, and prison-like Fairfield High School?  And the county's chaotic road layout doesn't seem to produce many if any interesting intersections.   

 

Has anyone driven around a 1960's or 1970's-era subdivision lately?  They're all looking like rot.  Individuals are keeping up individual homes, but overall there is an insidious decline.  We see the exact thing repeat itself in these former suburban utopias that happened in the cities fifty years ago.  I'm quite tempted to start photographing the decline of these neighborhoods but I'm sure they'd call the police on me after a short while.       

Hunter Morrison, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University, said part of the problem was that the hierarchical mill culture of immigrants waiting to be given orders became part of the civic culture.

 

I think this company town menatlity is one of the problems with Dayton, too (though it wasnt immigrants from Europe that staffed the big 20th century industries here).

 

It was interesting to read that Y-Town looked at Mill Creek Park as a model for the shrinkage plan, and I didn't know that there was such a grass roots effort behind it. 

 

 

 

 

Really I had never been to Fairfield until this past month and I was startled by the Rt. 4 streetscape, which is positively Southern... How can one idle in envy on Rt. 4, gazing across the shallow valley at the fast food, utility poles, and prison-like Fairfield High School?

 

It is pretty soul-killing, isn't it?

 

And good analogy....Southern Surburbia.    I can think of some places around San Antonio that look like that, or Dixie or Preston Highways, heading out of Louisville (and particulary Dixie Hwy between Fort Knox and Elizabethtown)

 

 

.... I'm quite tempted to start photographing the decline of these neighborhoods but I'm sure they'd call the police on me after a short while.

 

I was going to do that with some here in Dayton, but thought better of it, for the very reason you state.         

I kind of have a problem with the pessimistic tone of this entire series.  And I've never been able to figure out why there is such optimism in Columbus and it's somehow taboo to be positive about Cincinnati, it reminds me of my 5 years in Tennessee, a state that apparently can do no wrong.  The Tennessee cities never had serious downtowns, still don't, still and never will have serious urban neighborhoods, are spectacularly segregated, etc.  None of them sans Chattanooga are near mountains, yet the mountains loom large in everyone's minds.  I remember an incident where some white country boys pushed a black homeless woman into the Cumberland River near the downtown Nashville entertainment district, where she drowned, and the story was never framed in the racial context that would have set off a firestorm in Ohio.  These days it seems having had a historically weak downtown is an advantage!

 

And for the millionth time, I'll bring up that the arrival of birth control pills and the legalization of abortion happened at the exact time when city populations started declining, and those two phenomena almost single-handedly explain population decline.  I've never seen it brought up in any media outlet and in fact I might put together a guest commentary for The Enquirer in upcoming months that will get talk radio talking. 

 

 

Columbus doesn't get as much criticism for being an 'old money town' the way Cincinnati does. Sadly, I don't think many people pay attention to urban fabric and its importance. DT Columbus isn't very dense and walkable but it is "clean" and safe. Columbus is percieved as being incredibly clean but that's only because all of the nice neighborhoods are centralized. Most people don't see the east or west side, or even the north east side. However, in Cincinnati it's easy to end up in a place like Over-the-Rhine because of its close connection to downtown. Columbus does a better job of hiding its poverty.

Really I had never been to Fairfield until this past month and I was startled by the Rt. 4 streetscape, which is positively Southern... How can one idle in envy on Rt. 4, gazing across the shallow valley at the fast food, utility poles, and prison-like Fairfield High School?

 

It is pretty soul-killing, isn't it?

 

And good analogy....Southern Surburbia.    I can think of some places around San Antonio that look like that, or Dixie or Preston Highways, heading out of Louisville (and particulary Dixie Hwy between Fort Knox and Elizabethtown)

 

Well, I mean, we are talking about roads named Dixie Highway here.

So no Canton installment?  Hmmm  They should've probably ran Canton and Ytown at the same time.  Since they were running a city/day and they ran out of days. 

 

It seems that there is some new awareness in the governor's office.  1. The quality/state of the cities matter to the state.  2. Sprawl is not necessarily a good thing.

 

As far as the chosen topic of this thread, I don't see how bigger cities can work together.  Most have a hard enough time working with neighboring cities, villages, and townships.  Working together presumes sharing resources or communication or pooling together something.  Thats what the state is for.

>Columbus does a better job of hiding its poverty.

 

I agree totally, although I don't think there was any conscious effort to do so.  Nashville's another place where the public housing and "bad" neighborhoods are well out of sight of downtown, again more by chance than by design. 

 

Thought it might be appropriate to mention the Great Lakes Urban Exchange here in case you missed the post I did at http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=14758.0.

 

Two individuals (one in Pittsburgh and one in Detroit) are launching a Brookings Institute project that will document what young people are doing to revitalize urban areas in the Great Lakes region, as well as the challenges and opportunities they face. In February, they'll be launching a website of blog content and documentary videos, as they travel to cities throughout the Great Lakes states meeting with young leaders. Ultimately, they're hoping to spark a regional dialogue about how young people throughout the region can connect, collaborate and build a shared agenda in advance of the 2008 presidential election. They're interested in identifying young movers and shakers in each of the 3 Cs who are doing transformative work in things like land bank, transit, combatting racial segregation, civic engagement, sustainability, affordable housing, etc. They'll be conducting site visits soon ... I know they're visiting Cleveland at the end of next week.

 

If you would like to get in touch with the co-founders, PM me, and I can give you their contact info.

 

This seems like a great way for many young leaders in the 3 Cs to start networking and exploring shared agendas not only in Ohio but throughout the region.

Hunter Morrison, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University, said part of the problem was that the hierarchical mill culture of immigrants waiting to be given orders became part of the civic culture.

 

I think the above statement is pretty racist.  I think the lack of money and the relatively rapid destruction of the local economy probably has more to do with the powerlessness.  The local economic elites in places like Youngstown can cash out and move on to brighter prospects, which the average mill worker can't.  A perfect example, albeit from Dayton, is the Cox family.  The airport is named after Cox, the newspaper is still owned by them, but after Atlanta got big they moved Cox Enterprises down there from Dayton.  No other reason.  They owned the Atlanta Journal since 1939 but only moved down there sometime after the Second World War. 

How is that racist?  It's not.  If anything, it's "class-ist."  Morrison spoke of no races in his comment.  I posit that "racist" isn't the term that you're looking for here.  Your argument also seems to support his contention.

Yes, you are right, it certainly isn't racist, and I don't think its classist.  He is just speaking of facts, and how the immigrant mentality was.  Yes, they were hard working people who would do as they were told and that is what they passed down, work hard and don't rock the boat.

Well, do you prefer the term ethnocentrist?  Who constitutes "immigrant" in American history?  A broad view would say that every ethnic group except Native American Indian would qualify as an immigrant.  But the clear though unstated implication is Eastern European, Southern European and perhaps Irish, either way overwhelmingly Catholic, in essence, people who did not come from the original stock of British settlers.  This sort of prejudice may not be considered racism today but it certainly was when it was most virulent, termed as such by the proponents.  When Teddy Roosevelt railed against "hyphenated Americans" he was not talking about African Americans.  So I believe I termed it correctly, though it may not seem that way to some who may not have an historical perspective.

The end of the article really gets to the crux of the problem which could be best signified by the immense growth of Delaware, Butler, and Warren Cties. These sprawl counties have captured much of the energy that was once centered in the big cities. The difference is that they have developed almost entirely along the suburban, sprawl anti-urban way instead the higher density urban style in the 3 Cs and Toledo. They have also imbibed an anti-urban ideology at the very core of their cultures. Depending on the price of energy over the next generation, their future could be far more fraught than they realize now.

 

I wouldn't put much hope in that.  Initiatives of questionable value become worth paying for when the "right" people want them.  Is their any other explanation for the sound barriers along I-71?

Well, do you prefer the term ethnocentrist?  Who constitutes "immigrant" in American history?  A broad view would say that every ethnic group except Native American Indian would qualify as an immigrant.  But the clear though unstated implication is Eastern European, Southern European and perhaps Irish, either way overwhelmingly Catholic, in essence, people who did not come from the original stock of British settlers.  This sort of prejudice may not be considered racism today but it certainly was when it was most virulent, termed as such by the proponents.  When Teddy Roosevelt railed against "hyphenated Americans" he was not talking about African Americans.  So I believe I termed it correctly, though it may not seem that way to some who may not have an historical perspective.

 

It would be ethnocentrist/racist/classist if he is suggesting that it is because these millworkers are immigrants that they lack initiative.  I highly doubt that is what he is saying.  I think he is commenting on the culture of heirarchical organizations which leave little room for the lower level workers to think independently.  In most mill towns like Youngstown, those jobs were traditionally held by immigrants, who come in at the bottom rung of society.

Folks, if you've ever seen the movie "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang (a movie far ahead of its time) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/, it conveys what Morrison is suggesting.

It would be ethnocentrist/racist/classist if he is suggesting that it is because these millworkers are immigrants that they lack initiative.  I highly doubt that is what he is saying.  I think he is commenting on the culture of heirarchical organizations which leave little room for the lower level workers to think independently.  In most mill towns like Youngstown, those jobs were traditionally held by immigrants, who come in at the bottom rung of society.

 

I think it is absurd to suggest that the hierarchy of steel mill is unique in its ability to squelch independent thought in their workers.  I don't see the difference between what you are suggesting and what I considered to be what Morrison was implying.

I think he used "immigrant" to add local color to the piece.

 

The phenomenon is visible here in Dayton too, and this city didn' receive substantial Eastern and Southern European immigration.

 

One see's it here by people asking "where is the next John Patterson" or "where is the next Charles Kettering", two big industrialists, one a very domineering and paternalistic one, who's factories provided thousands of jobs and long term job security.

 

People were conditioned to expect to work at "The Cash" or Delco or Frigidaire (or, now, Wright-Patt) and these jobs would always be there and the big-daddy corporation and factory owner would provide.  Generations were brought up in  that kind of company town culture,  conditioned to do their jobs and let others lead.

 

Well, it didn't work out that way.  Not in Dayton.  Not in Youngstown. 

 

It would be ethnocentrist/racist/classist if he is suggesting that it is because these millworkers are immigrants that they lack initiative.  I highly doubt that is what he is saying.  I think he is commenting on the culture of heirarchical organizations which leave little room for the lower level workers to think independently.  In most mill towns like Youngstown, those jobs were traditionally held by immigrants, who come in at the bottom rung of society.

 

I think it is absurd to suggest that the hierarchy of steel mill is unique in its ability to squelch independent thought in their workers. 

 

To suggest it's just steel mills, yes.  But steel mills were just the local face of Fordist production methods, which don't allow for individual initiative.  They create a work culture of "put this bolt here when the piece comes down the line".  You do your one specific task, over and over, as it is fed to you, and you keep your mouth shut and head down.  Doesn't exactly allow for much leadership development among the proletariat, now, does it?

To suggest it's just steel mills, yes.  But steel mills were just the local face of Fordist production methods, which don't allow for individual initiative.  They create a work culture of "put this bolt here when the piece comes down the line".  You do your one specific task, over and over, as it is fed to you, and you keep your mouth shut and head down.  Doesn't exactly allow for much leadership development among the proletariat, now, does it?

 

If this is the case then I suppose modern society is doomed to be leaderless, because this sort of thing is the birth and thrust of modern management.  I've never worked on an assembly line, though I have worked in what I always termed a "machine shop".  Assembling 300 air whip hoses in a day certainly wasn't terribly stimulating, and perhaps it has effected my mental acuity, but it certainly didn't stop me from being able to make my own decisions after work.  I still think the statement is specious on its face and racist in its implication, even if the man didn't consciously mean to put it that way.

A better example would be Pittsburgh I think.  Pittsburgh's steel mills were also predominantly Slavic.  But I'd say Pittsburgh had other industries besides steelmaking to rely on.  PPG for instance or Westinghouse or Carnegie Mellon.  Had those companies not been in Pittsburgh, it would probably be very similar to Y-town.

^And Alcoa, and Heinz, and Mellon Financial.  Excellent point.

You still fail to see how the comment isn't "racist."  The groups that Morrison discussed were overwhelmingly Eastern European settlers.  Those in power in Youngstown at the time where also exclusively white.  There is not even a hint of "racism" in his comment, explicitly or through implication, aside from the one that you are attempting to read into because you disagree with his statement.

 

Have you ever even been to Youngstown?  I grew up there, and I can attest from those experiences that everything that he said is true.  For the record, the mindset in question has nothing to do with one's "race," but rather upon their shared experience in the steel mills (as that was Youngstown's primary industry), as others wrote above, working for the "Big Daddy" corporation.  Read the book "Steelworker Alley" by Robert Bruno, as it'll provide context for Morrison's comment.

 

Moreover, your experience today has nothing to do with what happened in Youngstown 80 or so years ago.  Your viewpoint that "modern society is doomed to be leaderless" is anachronistic as many things have changed since 1927.

Knoxville, TN frequently claims ALCOA as a native fortune 500 company due to its proximity to ACLOA's Alcoa, TN plant.  Aluminum refining is a very energy-intensive activity and the TVA apparently had enough spare power in the area (uranium refining was going on just up the road) for a big-time plant.  In fact the wikipedia article says that the founder of ALCOA first attempted production in Lockport, NY, which is relatively close to Buffalo and Niagra Falls' immense and cheap power.  Reading the history of big companies is always interesting because it tends to blow hole through the current creative class trend.  Big companies end up where they are often for fleeting reasons, not because some place is cool or whatever.  After all, Microsoft is in Seattle because Bill Gates is a nerd and moved back in with his parents, not because he was starting a band or something.   

 

The only large-scale assembly-line type job I've had (and I've had over 20 jobs) was working at an Amazon.com distribution plant where the primary product was books.  They had every...single...book in production there, the place was huge.  They didn't have much problem with employee theft because, you know, hourly workers don't really read too much in their free time.  It was non-union and most of the floor management was foreign because I suspect they found they could get huge hours and total loyalty out of these foreigners.  My one boss from Bangladesh worked 6 days a week for two years straight at the plant, worked Sundays at a gas station, and hadn't been back to see his wife for years.  The other guy, Afzel, who was from Iraq (I'm guessing he came over here sometime around 1995) was a total tool, strutted around with his hands on his hips but had that underlying insecurity symptomatic of those types.  He knew I detected it in him and he hated me for it.  The place was run by clowns who tampered with the production stats in order to have an excuse just to call you in the office and make themselves feel important.  They either knew what they were doing with messing with the numbers or really were that stupid.  What was always funny is when a Noam Chomsky, Baudrillard, or or any other leftist book came down the line, the workers had no idea who these writers were and had no curiosity.  In the break room, people just talked to their little girlfriends or boyfriends on the phone or looked at the comics of Circuit City inserts.  There was one guy who was a conspiracy theorist, no break could pass without him repeating for the millionth time something about JFK, Vince Foster, Moth Man, et al.       

You still fail to see how the comment isn't "racist."  The groups that Morrison discussed were overwhelmingly Eastern European settlers.  Those in power in Youngstown at the time where also exclusively white.  There is not even a hint of "racism" in his comment, explicitly or through implication, aside from the one that you are attempting to read into because you disagree with his statement.

 

Have you ever even been to Youngstown?  I grew up there, and I can attest from those experiences that everything that he said is true.  For the record, the mindset in question has nothing to do with one's "race," but rather upon their shared experience in the steel mills (as that was Youngstown's primary industry), as others wrote above, working for the "Big Daddy" corporation.  Read the book "Steelworker Alley" by Robert Bruno, as it'll provide context for Morrison's comment.

 

Moreover, your experience today has nothing to do with what happened in Youngstown 80 or so years ago.  Your viewpoint that "modern society is doomed to be leaderless" is anachronistic as many things have changed since 1927.

 

I re-read my previous post on this and I think the thrust of my argument is pretty clear.  You don't seem to understand my point or how I am presenting it.  I'm not particularly interested in re-hashing this.

I re-read the entire series of articles and have to say that I think this is the most important point (from the second article):

 

In the offices of big-city mayors across the state, similar sentiments are spewed toward the Statehouse. The mayors, all Democrats, generally agree: During the eight years Taft and Republicans were in control, the big cities' ability to self-govern was systematically dismantled.

 

"I've been mayor eight years now, and many times I've felt that cities have been the whipping boys of the legislature," said Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman.

 

"We in urban centers say the state has an anti-urban bias, particularly in areas of home rule, where the state is eliminating the ability of charter municipalities to be able to do what is in the best interests of their communities," said Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

 

Akron Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic agreed, contending that the legislature has "passed every imaginable anti-city piece of legislation," gradually eroding the concept of home rule, which was added to the Ohio Constitution in 1912 to give local governments authority to enact their own laws.

 

Among examples: state laws throwing out local rules requiring firefighters and police officers to live in the cities where they work; limitations on local eminent-domain laws; wiping out local gun laws such as Columbus' assault-weapons ban; prohibiting cities from filing lawsuits against lead-paint manufacturers for costs of cleaning up the hazardous materials in older buildings; passing a bill to stop cities from using red-light cameras to catch traffic offenders, a measure vetoed by Taft.

 

Meanwhile, townships have been empowered by the General Assembly, which has granted them more authority to rebuff city annexation attempts, regulate strip clubs and control zoning issues.

 

"In my opinion, this group has been totally, 100 percent set on destroying central cities in Ohio," Plusquellic charged, referring to legislative Republicans.

 

Now it is clear that the problems of the major cities didn't start in the mid 90s.  While Mayor Plusquellic may be going too far in his statement, implying conspiracy, the complete and utter disrespect for the semi-sovereign rights (I will go as far as to say that) of chartered cities, i.e. public corporations, is a revocation of freedom and democratic rights.  I always wondered why Cincinnati didn't have a workers residency law (though I'm not saying that such a law is necessarily a positive).

 

What I don't understand is why these usurpations weren't challenged legally.  Or if they were, on what grounds did the State Supreme Court rule against the cities?  Public corporations have lost more and more of their rights over time (an excellent book- Citymaking by Gerald Frug, describes this process), but I wouldn't be surprised if the cities didn't put up much of a fight.

 

It seems to me that there needs to be something written into the state Constitution that could guarantees a place for the eight major cities of Ohio and guarantees certain corporate privileges to them.  Perhaps a third category for public corporations aside from just cities and villages.

 

Your prior point is either flatly wrong or poorly argued, as the comment by Morrison was not objectively "racist" in any way (nor has anyone else alleged that it is; you are free to argue that it is incorrect on the merits).  You shouldn't throw that "racist"comment around when you merely disagree with what someone says.

The issue with Ohio and central citys is that there is such a strong city vs suburb divide here. 

 

The General Assmebly is probably dominated by suburban legistlators and rural ones, who work in coaltion.  Suburban legislators probably don't see a common interest with the central city in their legislative district, but ally more with rural reps.

 

I think back to Kentucky, which only has two large citys (well, three, if you count Northern Kentucky as a city)

 

In the case of Louisville, the county legislators..the state senators and representatives, consituted themselves as the Jefferson County caucus, to work together for issues that benefited Louisville and Jefferson County (this was prior to merger).

 

This illustrates how suburban legislators were able to make common cause with urban representives as one metropolitan delegation.

 

(Of course in Lexignton they had that "urban county government" for years, so the city/suburb division didnt exist). 

 

 

Since the Supreme Court ruled on one man one vote in Reynolds v Simms this means there is or was a fairly large block of urban legislators in KY, particularly after 1970, when KY moved to over 50% urban, so the Jefferson County delegation, combined with Lexington/Fayette, had quite a bit of clout in Frankfort.

 

 

 

Your prior point is either flatly wrong or poorly argued, as the comment by Morrison was not objectively "racist" in any way (nor has anyone else alleged that it is; you are free to argue that it is incorrect on the merits).  You shouldn't throw that "racist"comment around when you merely disagree with what someone says.

 

Swish.  You win.

i love how the article says "except columbus" a couple of times when referring to inner city troubles.  Thats pretty dangerous though, as the only reason Columbus's population hasnt shrunk is because of annexation.  The annexation and thus population growth has masked their inner city exodus just like the other ohio cities.  And even the Dispatch has fallen for this and basically claims in this article that everything is a-ok in C-Bus inner city.

 

Thank you! That aggravates me too when I hear people say that.

(I wasn't sure where to post this as it involves Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh)

 

Leadership from the Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh Mega-Region Join to Create Tech Belt Initiative to Reinvigorate the Economy

Cleveland, OH, October 31, 2008

 

The Tech Belt Initiative is an economic development strategy designed to reinvigorate the Cleveland-to-Pittsburgh region (Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh) by building on its unique civic, educational, healthcare, and industrial institutions. The transition to a knowledge-based economy has caused opinion leaders from these metropolitan areas to recognize that the future of these once great manufacturing communities are tied together, and that our continued success depends on our ability to collaborate in the creation of new products, technologies, and wealth.

 

To spearhead this effort, a steering committee, comprised of leadership organizations from Southwest Pennsylvania and Northeast Ohio, is working to develop a strategic vision for this initiative and to build the partnerships necessary to leverage the region's collective resources. The committee has identified the following goals for potential partnership opportunities:

 

Encourage the federal government to identify the region as a Premier Innovation Zone and invest in/augment existing state technology-based economic development programs

 

http://www.gcpartnership.com/News.aspx?id=3008Read More...[/url]

Sounds like it maybe a better fit for this thread.

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,12582.0.html