Posted August 1, 200519 yr An interesting article I saw in the 7/31/05 Dayton Daily News: Dayton at a crossroad By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News After more than three decades of economic and population stagnation, the Dayton region is standing at a crossroads. The world's economy is changing, manufacturing jobs are evaporating, local government budgets are shrinking, and household incomes are feeling the pinch. Across the region, worried government, business and community leaders are searching for ways to turn the economy around. Maybe they can learn something from Dave Dysinger's story. The 58-year-old Bethel Twp. resident began his business 27 years ago just like many of the region's most famous entrepreneurs: by himself. He was a one-man shop for a year-and-a-half before he hired his first employee. By 1997, Dysinger had grown his machining business to $8 million in annual income and employed 116 people. He was living the American Dream. "It's what makes America America," Dysinger said. "I was able to hang up a shingle and grow my business. I had a nice little company and a comfortable lifestyle and income." http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0731xrdseconomy.html
August 1, 200519 yr As part of this the newspaper had a nice page with all kinds of graphics and maps showing statistics, advantages and disadvantages, etc. of the region. I didn't expect to find it on the DDN web site, but lo and behold it actually is there: it's a 4MB PDF file: http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/daytondailynews/pdf/crossroads.pdf (I don't know if it can be accessed without registering for the site.)
August 3, 200519 yr But there's an elephant sitting in the middle of the living room, experts say: The Miami Valley's reputation as a stronghold for organized labor. "It's a reality, and nobody likes to believe it," said Beal, whose territory includes Ohio, but runs east to New Jersey and Maryland. Beal said he worked with two companies recently that ended up locating facilities in Indiana instead of the Dayton region because they were worried about organized labor. One, he said, was a consumer goods manufacturing company that originally wanted to locate in the Miami Valley. "Their biggest fear was wage rates and the labor atmosphere," he said. "That is probably one of the biggest obstacles to overcome." Which is ironic, as 100 years ago Dayton was in the forefront of creating a union-free environment for manufacturing. The buisness community here pioneered the "stick"...aggressive use of replacement workers (to the point of housing them on-site during strikes), blacklists, and the manufacturers association, to provide a coordinated united front against unions....and the "carrot", mainly at National Cash Register, with a benefits system to keep the workforce happy, thus not likely to unionize. This proactive approach was pretty sucessfull, and manufacturing in Dayton was largely union-free until the UE began to organize here in the 1930s. Yet, I wonder if unionization is really that widespread here in the smaller companies like those tool and die firms that article talks about.
August 7, 200519 yr This "crossroads" thing is going to be an ongoing series, I guess. Here's this week's article, about the Arcade. There were also a couple short articles profiling businesses, which I didn't really read. Arcade important to residents By Jim DeBrosse and Ken McCall Dayton Daily News DAYTON | In the last few years, downtown Dayton has tried to rebound with minor league baseball, loft housing, RiverScape MetroPark, the Schuster Center for the Performing Arts and a dazzling renovation of the Old Court House. But ask Miami Valley residents what's missing from the puzzle of downtown revitalization, and the Arcade will be near the top of the list. A recent Dayton Daily News survey found strong support for the Arcade: 70 percent of those polled said the Arcade was either important or very important to Dayton's efforts to revitalize its urban core. And it didn't much matter if the respondents lived in Dayton itself or one of its distant suburbs. "If you leave the Arcade out of the mix, you're setting yourself up for failure," said Yyetta Whitehead, 58, of Sugarcreek Twp. "It's such a central thing — the history of it, the size of the property. If you don't do something with it, everything else will seem sort of half-hearted and cosmetic." The poll also found strong backing for policies that would revitalize vacant and abandoned sites all over the city: 65 percent of respondents said they would support spending their tax dollars on such a program. Again, the support was consistent across income levels, areas of residence and race. It seems the public understands and endorses what many community leaders have said for years: A vital urban core is crucial to the region's prosperity. http://www.daytondailynews.com/ Some graphs... http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/06/36/74/image_1774366.jpg http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/04/36/74/image_1774364.jpg ----- I am quite surprised by that second survey question, shown in the graphs above. I really would not expect such high support for having tax dollars spent that way, especially among people in the "outer belt." I wonder how the question was phrased.
August 7, 200519 yr Very interesting. But what is the deal with Springfield? How come the property crime rate is so high?
August 7, 200519 yr But what is the deal with Springfield? How come the property crime rate is so high? Mostly because of this guy.
August 8, 200519 yr Those numbers look good for support for some sort redevelopment plan or policy dealing with vacancies and abandonment...interesting that there is more support from the outer suburbs on this than from the inner suburbs...
August 8, 200519 yr I can see that Dayton Daily News is perhaps doing some advocacy journalism and trying to help "set the agenda" with that "redevelop abandoned properites" question, as this was one of the recommendations that came out of the vacant properties study that I posted bits of earlier. It seems they papers are trying to help make the case that there is public support for a regionawide strategy, as this is golng to be a political issue if its pushed. As for the Arcade, I think Dineen is right that there is alot of nostalgia around the place, but the economics just arent there for it to work as retail, especially now with The Greene being built.... Interesting enough, based on my reading dusty old planning studies in the special collections section of various libraries around town, the orginal 1960s "urban renewal" concept for the Arcade was much grander than what was actually done in the late 1970s....the idea was to incorporate the Arcade and Courhous Square, and the old Rikes (Lazarus) store, into an "Eaton Centre" style shopping/office complex between 4th and 2nd street, with skywalks shooting across to other buildings and parking areas....this plan included a "Major Department Store" to be the anchor on the Arcade block, on Main...so ' have a mall arrangement between the older Rikes and the new store, sort of like between Eatons and Hudson Bay Company in the Eaton Centre... If followed that plan would have given Dayton a true indoor downtown shopping mall, decades ahead of the ones in Columbus and elsewhere in the midwest.
August 9, 200519 yr Hmm...and there I was posting the Arcade article in the Arcade thread. Silly me! ;)
December 18, 200519 yr I believe this is part of the "Crossroads" series, so here's another article on regional cooperation. More links, etc. at the web site. http://www.daytondailynews.com/project/content/localnews/daily/1218xroads.html Regional cooperation could be key to the future By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News DAYTON | More than two decades after the old GH&R Foundry closed and threw 700 employees out of work, a cold wind whips across the vacant 12-acre lot just north of the Mad River. When the owner of the foundry site began clearing it in 1994, he touted its views of the downtown Dayton skyline and ready access to Interstate 75 and Ohio 4. The GH&R site, which was later acquired by the city of Dayton, has water, sewer and utility lines, waiting for use. Like many other abandoned industrial sites in the city, it sits empty. Across the river to the west, at Fifth and Broadway streets, a similar scene is repeated, this time in a former residential neighborhood that was once a thriving community of working-class homes and families. Up Salem Avenue, North Main Street, and Keowee Street and scattered around downtown, the skeletons of retail stores litter what used to be bustling commercial corridors. Such scenarios have become familiar not only in Dayton, but in central cities across the Midwest and the nation. For almost 50 years, Americans have been moving out of cities to the suburbs in increasing numbers — and taking their money with them. http://www.daytondailynews.com
December 23, 200519 yr Thanks for posting, PigBoy. This has been a good series. I wish they would report on it more often. I'm going to go ahead and post the rest of the stories that appeared in that 12/18 issue so that those who haven't registered at DDN can have a chance to check it out. WARNING: Lots of reading ahead.... All stories from the 12/18/05 Dayton Daily News: By author's standards, Dayton is beyond 'point of no return' By the Dayton Daily News In Cities Without Suburbs, an influential book about the problematic connection between center cities and surrounding suburban communities, David Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque and now international consultant on urban policy, defined what he called the "point of no return" for center cities. Looking at statistics from 1950 on for all the metropolitan areas in the United States, Rusk found that once a center city fell below three benchmarks, it was never able to close the economic gap with its suburbs by even 1 percentage point. In his latest edition of the book, Rusk had to modify his point to "almost no return" because several metropolitan cities were able to keep up with their suburbs during the booming 1990s. But the point is still valid: Once a city falls too far behind its more affluent suburbs, a cycle of flight, increased segregation and concentration of poverty begins that contributes to a downward spiral in the urban core. Dayton is past that point. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1218rusk.html Is there another Patterson to lead Dayton? By Benjamin Kline Dayton Daily News DAYTON | Dayton was "no place for a university man," John H. Patterson complained in 1867 after graduating from Dartmouth College and returning from New Hampshire 671 miles to his widowed mother's big farm at the south edge of Dayton. Turned out, he was wrong. At his death 55 years later, the city closed schools and businesses to honor him as its "first citizen," Leaders proposed naming Main Street "Patterson Avenue." There was no doubt the small man with the furious mustache had found his place — in Dayton and as the premier cash register salesman in American business history. Could it happen today? Is a Dayton-born industrial giant like Patterson studying at a table in Wright State University's Dunbar library beneath the actual-size Wright Flyer model celebrating other hometown achievers? Who knows? But just as Patterson speculated 138 years ago whether Dayton had what it took to cultivate creative genius, some are questioning whether the city — or even the state — is doing enough to nurture the John Pattersons of today. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1218patterson.html John H. Patterson's recipe for Dayton From his 1896 "Model Cities" speech: • Better schools. A large number of kindergartens should be started. Evening classes should be held for those who cannot attend daytime. Conditions for teachers must be improved. • Unskilled men and women should be given transportation and vocational training so that "in the Dayton of the future no kind of work will be looked upon as ignoble, for a high grade of education will be required of all. ... Manual training also will be provided in scientific schools." • The city center will be given up to business life "while our homes will be situated in beautiful suburbs." The working day will be shorter. Wages will increase. (As at NCR, women employees should be let out a half-hour earlier than the men, so there won't be a rush for street cars.) • All wires and pipes will be hidden underground in large sewers, to avoid tearing up streets for repair work. • A system of libraries will replace the single main library. There will be a free conservatory of music, free art school and gallery and regular loaned exhibitions "where even the poorest may enjoy their treasures at certain times in the year." • Sanitary conditions will be improved and monitored by a competent board of health. Streets will be kept cleaner. Free baths will be provided for the public. From his 1907 speech: • Dayton has a poor labor market in "quality and quantity of labor at the proper cost" to attract business. • Dayton has the reputation of being the "worst-governed" town in Ohio, "and many of its people seem proud of the reputation." Politics needs to be removed from local government, with support going to "the best men" regardless of party." • The county fairgrounds should be turned into a park. • The police force can and should be the most efficient in the country. City and county officials must cooperate to locate and punish criminals. • Schools need improvement.
December 23, 200519 yr Residents outside city believe it is vital that Dayton improves By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News SPRINGBORO | Annie Molnar runs a Web design business out of her four-year-old Springboro home, and her husband, Eric, works in northern Kentucky. Between Annie's work running Molnar Designs and taking care of their 16-month-old son, Cole, and Eric's more than two-hour daily commute to a financial firm in Covington, the Molnars don't have a lot extra time and energy to make it to events in downtown Dayton. And yet the 34-year-old Centerville native, who is expecting a second child in April, says the city of Dayton is important enough to her that she would support spending some of her tax dollars to redevelop the city's vacant and abandoned sites. She is not alone. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents to a Dayton Daily News poll last May and June said they would support such a program. Even those from the outer-ring suburbs, such as Springboro, agreed by a similar margin. The poll finding suggests suburban residents recognize the importance of the center city to the prosperity of the region. Molnar said she supported the idea because she wants to see Dayton "revitalized." http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1218doll.html
December 23, 200519 yr Would you support spending tax money to help develop abandoned sites in Dayton? By the Dayton Daily News About two-thirds of the respondents in a Dayton Daily News poll — including those in the suburbs — said they would support spending some of their taxes on developing vacant sites in Dayton. Here are excerpts from the interviews with some of those who answered yes to that question. Why do you support spending tax money to help develop vacant or abandoned sites in Dayton? Tom Lilly, 70, of Centerville, retired teacher and principal, now working on a doctorate in educational leadership at the University of Dayton. "I guess I was thinking more along the line of being able to help kids in some way. "If there are abandoned areas, maybe they could develop those into play grounds or into rec centers or basketball courts, tennis courts, things of that sort that might not be too awfully expensive to put in and yet they could probably do a lot of good in terms of helping kids with something to do." Amy Bearden, 44, of Miamisburg, a network administrator for the accounting firm Goldshot, Lamb and Hobbs. "Because I think if you had more people downtown, more businesses, then people would want to stay downtown. When I worked downtown ... we'd get together after work and go to have drinks somewhere when there were things to do, shopping and things like that. Now there's really nothing to do after work. So if you developed it more for the manufacturing or anything like that, then maybe the different restaurants would come downtown. And then I wouldn't be afraid to go down there." Mary Willhoite, 52, of Vandalia, a retired bank manager. "Most of the buildings that are abandoned, they stay that way and of course it breeds crime and I would say drug use, things of that nature. And then people are afraid to come and shop in these areas. I think it has to be a safe area for people to feel comfortable, you know, like myself. "But I just think we're doing an injustice to our community by moving everything out in the suburbs. And also, for some people who do not have transportation, the bus routes are more accessible to downtown Dayton." Dan Berridge, 60, of Beavercreek, court administrator for Greene County Domestic Relations Court. "Absolutely. I think it's a region economy. I think it's all interconnected. I think the whole area from Dayton to Cincinnati is pretty well interconnected. They share a lot, partly because of I-75. ... I guess I look at it that way because I've worked in Middletown and Hamilton and Fairfield and areas like that. There's kind of a dividing line about Monroe where they think of themselves more as Cincinnati, and north of there, they think of themselves more aligned with Dayton. But it's definitely a regional economy." http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1218qa.html
February 18, 200619 yr Here is the latest series of articles, from the 2/12/06 Dayton Daily News: Satisfaction: The city-suburb great divide Inside Dayton, fewer like it compared with those living in the suburbs By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News City and suburban residents in the Miami Valley feel so differently about some aspects of their quality of life it's hard to believe they live in the same region. On some issues, such as neighborhood safety and quality of housing, dissatisfaction in the city runs 10 times that of outer ring suburbanites. When asked how satisfied they were with neighborhood safety, more than a third of city residents said they were either very or somewhat dissatisfied. But only 3 percent of outer ring residents said they were dissatisfied. The poll, conducted by the University of Dayton Business Research Group, includes 517 interviews from May 17 to June 9 of last year. It has an overall margin of error of 4.3 percentage points. Other poll results, and previous articles from the series, are available on DaytonDailyNews.com/Crossroads. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0212crossroads.html Nearly half of Valley residents itching to move Poll finds young people most eager to pack up By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News DAYTON | No matter where you live in the Miami Valley, it seems, the grass looks greener somewhere else. Almost half of Miami Valley residents said they would leave the region if they could move now, according to a Dayton Daily News poll. Forty-nine percent of those polled said they would leave the Miami Valley if they could move now, while just over a third said they'd stay put and 17 percent said they'd move to a different jurisdiction in the Miami Valley. The results changed little regardless of where respondents live, how much they make, how old or what race they are. Only people 65 and older and those with household incomes of $100,000 or more had a majority who said they would stay in the same community. But barely. Both the wealthiest income bracket and oldest age bracket said they'd stay by a razor-thin majority — less than 51 percent. Most likely to want to leave were young people. Almost three out of four in the youngest age bracket, age 18 to 24, said they'd leave the region if they could. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0212move.html City living called least satisfying Poll finds more Dayton residents displeased with neighborhood than suburban peers By Ken McCall Dayton Daily News DAYTON | Even with the loss of manufacturing jobs in the Miami Valley, community and business leaders have frequently touted quality of life as an enduring strength of the region. A Dayton Daily News poll, however, found large cracks in people's satisfaction with their community, especially in the city. Fewer than half of city residents said they were satisfied overall on 17 quality-of-life issues covered by the poll, and Daytonians were significantly more dissatisfied than their suburban neighbors. While more people in the region are satisfied than not, dissatisfaction among city residents runs twice as high as suburbanites on average. Suburban residents are generally satisfied with the safety in their own neighborhoods. But when asked about neighborhood safety in the region as a whole, their satisfaction plummets. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0212xroadsseg.html
February 24, 200817 yr Good stuff here indeed I wonder if there were any solutions offered to this problem in the news.
February 25, 200817 yr not good news for Westchester... Dayton will soon pass it as Cincys largest suburb...
February 25, 200817 yr ^No. Cincinnati is already Dayton's largest suburb ;). "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 24, 201113 yr Sadly, very prescient. Everything bad cited about Dayton in '05 has just gotten worse. I was able to download and save that PDF graphic mentioned at the top of this thread just now. Dayton has a poor labor market in "quality and quantity of labor at the proper cost" to attract business. It would appear to be still regarded as such, 100+ years later. I didn't realize that Dayton was still regarded as such a hellhole of organized labor. That would keep manufacturing businesses out and it accounts for a lot.
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