Posted April 8, 200817 yr ReBuild Ohio, a nonprofit advocacy group, has a study out “500 Million & Counting, the Cost of Vacant Properties to 8 Ohio Cities”, which is what it says. But there are some in-depth profiles for selected cities, with different kinds of maps showing how the vacancy situation is sorting out. For some places, like Cleveland, they only look in-depth in one or two neighborhoods (for Cleveland its Slavic Village). For Dayton, though, they mapped the entire city, using the cities own data. So one gets a pretty stunning picture of the vacancy crisis here. Note there is some overlap with the foreclosure crisis, but I think this is been happing over time. First off, the key on this map uses two classifications White boxes: Vacant units that are not in the housing market, but “secure”, not boarded up yet. As of Jan. 2007 there was 2,403 of these Yellow boxes: Vacant units that are boarded up, or are too deteriorated to board-up. As of Jan. 2007 there was 1,418 of these. Add to those numbers vacant lots. There were 1,996 tax delinquent abandoned vacant lots in 2006. Presumably the cities new demolition push will be drawing down the backlog of “yellow boxes”., but the inventory will be replenished by additional board- ups and units deteriorating to the point of needing to be demo’d So, on to the maps: The city as a whole, What should blow your mind is how widespread this problem is. Its as if neighborhoods that are not seeing a lot of vacancies are the exception not the rule. And this is just the city. East and West of the Great Miami Now, lets take a closer look, going counter clockwise around the city, starting with southeast Dayton Finishing up with the neighborhoods west of Gettysburg: Residence Park, Townview, Greenwich Village, etc. So what is the end state, when will this situation reach equilibrium? Will we see the Detroitification of Dayton, where the city becomes largely vacant, with occasional clusters of houses? (image is from a Detroit Free Press article on the landscapes of Detroit). Based on this map sort of a quite, ongoing “Dayton Devils Night”, with over 80 in vacant structures in 2006 , 13.9% of all structure fires. Presumably fires in vacant structures are due to arson or homeless people living in abandoned places and using open fires. The recent Governing article spins the Dayton vacancy crisis as a result of the foreclosure issue. I think this goes back further, that foreclosures are only part of the story (presumably leading to more “white boxes” on the map). Abandonment and boarding-up might be further down the pike for those properties. To show that this is an ongoing problem, here is a look at two blocks of Bank Street, on the near west side (what’s called “Inner West” here…there is an “Inner East” too). The study area in 1947. Note the dense urban fabric here, with nearly every lot built on. Graphing decline in population based on city directory info, for the two blocks. One can see the decline decades years ago, after 1970 Bank Street today One of the last two houses on Bank Street, located in the 1947 urban context January 2008 March 2008 This is probably worst case in what used to an older area on the west side. Yet the process is repeating itself further out. The difference is the end -tate for residential lots is infill housing instead of urban prairie. This is particularly the case on the West Side. I think the infill houses are products of a charter school teaching building trades, but not sure about that (there are a lot being built, so maybe more than just the trade school?). A positive outcome, but two questions: Can this infill program can follow up the demo program’s quicker pace, and will there be an upper limit to the market for new houses in Dayton?
April 8, 200817 yr Jeffrey Where do you find most of your maps? Some of those diagrams are simply amazing, and Id love to know where to view them. I know Wright State has a pretty extensive archive, but other than that Im pretty lost when it comes to local research.
April 8, 200817 yr I can see that one big risk of being a homeowner in Dayton is that your property becomes passively associated with the blight just by being in the way of it. I spy a few white and one yellow boxes in my old stomping grounds of Belmont and Hearthstone, and quite a few vacancies in Eastmont. The problem in Dayton being that there are no significant natural, cultural or man made boundaries between blighted neighborhoods and presently stable neighborhoods. It would not take a lot for the stuff in the east end to creep southward into Ohmer Park, Walnut Hills, Belmont, and then finally Patterson Park, the "leet" southern neighborhood in Dayton.
April 8, 200817 yr How much does Montgomery Cty hate Dayton? Would regionalism be possible any more so there than in Cincinnati? It strikes me that at this level of abandonment, a metro gov. could basically take some of the areas and essentially treat them as with township quality government as opposed to city level. Just a thought. Unfortunately, when Germans leave, they really leave. Where does UD fit into this equation? I wonder if Dayton is also hurt by Wright State being out in the middle of nowhere.
April 8, 200817 yr Good research Jeffrey. Its pretty much what I felt bebopping around Dayton a few years ago. I totally felt comfortable in Oregon District, Downtown for the most part, Oakwood, and Belmont. Anywhere else in Dayton I didn't feel particularly comfortable. The sprawl outside of Dayton is pretty annoying. Its pretty obvious thats where the former population resides likely because of schools. I think its too bad that Oakwood and Dayton never merged. Its probably too late to do that.
April 8, 200817 yr Wow, I really never knew that there was such a problem in Dayton. I guess all I have ever been to in Dayton has been UD, Oakwood, and some of the burbs, all of which seem pretty healthy. This is pretty scary stuff.
April 8, 200817 yr ^ That failed in the 1920s or 30s. There was a move to annex Oakwood, and it actually recieved support from the "power structure" west of Far Hills...they wanted to merge, but the petit bourgoise east of Far Hills opposed it and they had the votes. So the die was cast before WWII already. The big annexation mistake Dayton made was not to annex Southern Hills when they annexed Belmont, as the move to incorporate Kettering came from Southern Hills after the war...by then there was the "precedent" of Oakwood to follow.
April 8, 200817 yr Where do you find most of your maps? Some of those diagrams are simply amazing, The foreclosure maps came from a link in a post at Dayton Most Metro, which linked to a big pdf of the study that contained them The 1940s map of west Dayton came from a Harlan Bartholomew & Associates planning study of the early 1950s, which supported a proposed urban renewal project. I actually first found a lot of this stuff via searches on Ohiolink, and checked them out of librarys elsewhere in Ohio (they were ciruclating). Non circulating things come from the Dayton Metro Library history room. I do searches on their card catologue, and also their bibliography of old maps (hard copy, available at the desk in the history room). They have a very good collection. Yet there are also maps buried in studies and reports, which I have also used. The ones I used in that East Dayton thread came from different studies and reports. There is also the absolutely invaluable online Sanborn collection at OPLIN website. This is a real good resource for the industrial and commercial history of Dayton. I also have personal copys of the 1875 Combination Atlas and a 1931 plat book of the city (found these at a used bookstore years ago) WSUs archives I have used, too, but not that much for maps, though I did find some 1920s maps there that had some good intel on Moraine (I have a desultory research going on on Moraine, which is more interesting than it looks..to really research that I need to go to Boston to the Olmstead archive) and a 1930s real estate atlas that was helpful for suburban history.
April 8, 200817 yr A point that I forgot to make on the thread header...note the scale issue here..the symbols on those maps are fairly large, so if one scales them down to fit into a street map the situation might not look that dire. Howver, having driven, and in some cases walked, some of these areas I can tell you that yes, indeed, there are nearly entire blocks in some places with most houses vacant.
April 8, 200817 yr Thanks Jeff I just graduated from Wright State so I should still have priveleges there for at least a little while. Dayton Urban History is just a research hobby of mine.
April 9, 200817 yr The problem in Dayton being that there are no significant natural, cultural or man made boundaries between blighted neighborhoods and presently stable neighborhoods. It would not take a lot for the stuff in the east end to creep southward into Ohmer Park, Walnut Hills, Belmont, and then finally Patterson Park, the "leet" southern neighborhood in Dayton. Agreed. Dayton generally is a safe city (regarding "oh, I don't feel safe in that area") except for a couple of areas (DeSoto Bass, for example) but it clearly has issues as pointed out by Jeffrey. Great thread. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
April 9, 200817 yr Wow... great presentation Jeffery. I knew Dayton has been really struggling, but didn't realize it was to that extent. That's scary to think that abandonement has engulfed such a large swath of the city.
April 9, 200817 yr To be fair, there are scale issues with those maps, in that the symbols used are "big" so it makes it look like the city is covered. Mapping this out at, say, street level, it might not look that dense. But I know for sure, just from driving around the city, and even walking around scouting for pix, some of the streets have quite a bit of vacancys and board-ups per block. The suprise on the map is that Hillcrest/Fairview/Mnt Vernon area on the NW side as I knew that area as being pretty stable. I havnt been up their recently, so it was a bit of a suprise to see it show up so strong on the map.
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