I decided to see how Dayton compares in techy stuff, using the 2006 County Business Patterns. CBP measures employment by economic sector or NAICS code. I look at the "Professional Scientific and Technical" sector as this contains the engineers, programmers, scientists, and such, but also lawyers and accountants. Note that this are private sector employment (CBP does not count public sector, but would count consultants doing work for the public sector).

 

It measures employment by establishment and than tallies it up by county.  What i do is determine what % is this sector of the total for a county or group of counties.

 

I combine Montgomery and Greene counties as Dayton has employment center for this in both counties.  I do the same for other regional cities around Dayton (in some cases there is only one county counted, in others more).

 

For the cities around Dayton, Dayton ranks out at the top at over 8% of the workforce working in this sector.

 

 

..followed by Lexington.  Lexington is a professional services center serving most of central and east Kentucky so the place has a market out of porportion to it's size.

 

Adding three cities that are sometimes compared to Dayton:  Rochester and Syracuse NY and Grand Rapids MI, Dayton still has a relatively high % in the professional sector.  What's interesting is that Grand Rapids has a fairly low % in this sector compared with the set as a whole. Interesting given the places' rep as a Michigan sucess story.

 

 

Next, looking at a few other citys just for grins. Pittsburgh as its supposed to be a rustbelt sucess story, moving into a postindustrial economy. Chicagland (Dupage, Cook, & Lake counties) and Portland (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties) since they are supposed to be such cool places (never been to Portland...so I'm told)

 

 

Now that's interesting.  Portland sort ranks out midrange, but Chicago and Pittsburgh (!) exceed Dayton in % in the professional/scientific/technical sector...or one should say Dayton is the the Pittsburgh/Chicago range as a % of workforce.

 

Finally, adding Silicon Valley (San Mateo and Santa Clara counties) as a comparison, and one can see what a special case that area is as an uber-nerdistan.

 

 

So the impression of Dayton as an emergent technopole (albeit a specialized one) underneath the rustbelt malaise is perhaps correct as this % is relatively high regionally, with Pittsburgh perhaps a model to aspire to in working through the end of mass manufacturing to another kind of economy.

Fantastic job!

Great analysis and graphics, Jeffrey.

 

Now, consider where those scientific and technical jobs are based. The vast majority in the Dayton area, I will bet, are based either at WPAFB as civilian employees, or employed by AFB contractors in the Fairborn and Beavercreek areas.

 

I'm a geek (EE - software type) and I have butted my head against the local hiring scene ever since I moved back to the region. Here's my take.

 

Basically, defense-related technology positions in the area are inaccessible to those who don't currently possess either 1) current experience in a competing or related project or 2) a current security clearance. This is true even when you have related technology experience. (My understanding is that most current clearances can be migrated from one defense contractor to another at minimal expense, but the employer has to underwrite the entire expense of the background screening conducted by the DoD if you don't already have a clearance, and that costs tens of thousands.) Lacking either of these things, you can go in for the interview, but you will not be called back and they will act like "why are you even here?" So as we discussed a while back, the local civilian defense hiring scene is a closed system of sorts.

 

There are some employers at the research park like Kodak, and GM, Honeywell and others that employ techies. But my experience is that when you subtract out the defense related technology jobs, there is always a huge imbalance in favor of the employer. It's extremely difficult to be mid-career and be considered for hiring around here. In other words, there are always too damned many desperate, underemployed engineers floating around here.

 

What I am saying was true even when IT was hot in the late 90s. Programmers and computer people were feasting in other cities and were seriously underemployed locally. It's NEVER been a good hiring scene here.

 

In summary, Dayton is anything BUT the land of opportunity for technology professionals. I've known talented people who stayed in just horrible work situations because they couldn't find anything else.

 

And tech entrepreneurship is very limited here. I've known of a whole raft of smaller local technology companies that were run into the ground by their managements. The pattern I've observed at several places is: early success ... get incredibly cocky... key executive dies or leaves... or, the management just decides to get stupid en masse...  business implodes.

 

The area's technology opportunities are definitely hampered by that negative locally conservative culture. A friend and I call Dayton "Silicon Valley NOT".

^

Thats why I said that Dayton is a specialized technopole.  It is specialized in what Lexis Nexis, Caresource, and R&R do (which is going to India), but its really specialized in defense work of various types, and will attract people, or contractors (since this data set measures the private sector), who are in that world.  It's a niche market, a node in a specialized network of consultancys, think tanks, military institutions, and academic-related R&D centers.

 

The ED strategy here is to accentuate that and play in that world more.  They give lip service to the spin-off concept, but that is not really what they are trying to do. They are looking to grow the R&D contractor base here by brining in more research programs. 

 

The area's technology opportunities are definitely hampered by that negative locally conservative culture.

 

You think so?  I think it's a selling point.  Not for you, but for people in that world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agreed with all of your points.

 

You may have stumbled onto a social/cultural factor here that influences the area: the quantity of corporate relocatees who move into Dayton for one specific job and who aren't really rooted here. I'm thinking of specialists in stuff that is done by base contractors, and subject matter specialists that work at Lexis-Nexis. If their job goes "poof", they are likely too specialized to find a local replacement job. So the area has a huge number of transient professionals.

 

Now, what affect does that have on local culture, urbanism, activism? The town is basically a career stopover for those people.

This makes an interesting comparison with the general brain-drain narrative of Ohio. Dayton has plenty of draws to the city but lacks a culture that makes the general region successful. This might also explain the relative ease by which Dayton is being subsumed into Greater Cincinnati. It would be interesting to look at the geographic and class mobility of the children of the tech migrants to Dayton. Do they leave? and if they stay, do they maintain the same class level?

If their job goes "poof", they are likely too specialized to find a local replacement job. So the area has a huge number of transient professionals.

 

Now, what affect does that have on local culture, urbanism, activism? The town is basically a career stopover for those people.

 

I don't know about the defense side, but Lexis Nexis seems to be about 40% from out-of-town.  This might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing.

 

My hunch was that an ongoing in-migration would be a good thing as it would be bringing in a population not tinged with the negativity and anti-urban bias of the natives.  But this might not be the case if people are looking for places that will sell if they have to move, thus they play in the local real estate market which elimates Dayton, as they are subject to steering by local real-estate professionals.

 

Then there is the issue I hunched on on the earlier thread, the difference between the kind of professional brought in here (IT/engineering) vs other types of white collar work...whether they see a positive to urban living or not, particularly early career/pre-family people in their 20s and early 30s.

 

I recall reading the reason R&R built that big corporate campus out in Research Park was that they were having trouble recruiting due to their downtown location (as opposed to Humana in Louisville, which has expanded by adaptive re-use of old riverfront buildings in Louisville and new downtown high rises)

 

I think the result is what we are seeing in Dayton, a modern sububurban edge city civilazation that is fairly healthy econmically  (a small version of northern Virginia or Aerospace Alley) and a weak city/urban culture.

 

I'm going to take a regional look at other types of white collar employment next.

 

 

 

It would be interesting to look at the geographic and class mobility of the children of the tech migrants to Dayton.

 

Producing people for export.  I did do something like this for age cohorts (but without the socioeconomics) for the area, and did see that the area was producing people for export. Im not sure if I posted it here or not.

 

Thanks for the interesting thread, Jeffrey. I always love reading your research threads, particularly the creative industry ones ... even if I don't know Dayton as well as the Cleve :) You definitely put together some of the most thoughtful analyses on UrbanOhio ... and hey, it's a wesite full of brilliant analyses :-)

TheDonald, your posts are great! You really seem to be in touch with this scene and have good observations.

 

Thanks. I enjoy the Jeremiah role.  :evil:

 

If their job goes "poof", they are likely too specialized to find a local replacement job. So the area has a huge number of transient professionals.

 

Now, what affect does that have on local culture, urbanism, activism? The town is basically a career stopover for those people.

 

I don't know about the defense side, but Lexis Nexis seems to be about 40% from out-of-town.  This might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing.

 

My hunch was that an ongoing in-migration would be a good thing as it would be bringing in a population not tinged with the negativity and anti-urban bias of the natives.  But this might not be the case if people are looking for places that will sell if they have to move, thus they play in the local real estate market which elimates Dayton, as they are subject to steering by local real-estate professionals.

 

Then there is the issue I hunched on on the earlier thread, the difference between the kind of professional brought in here (IT/engineering) vs other types of white collar work...whether they see a positive to urban living or not, particularly early career/pre-family people in their 20s and early 30s.

 

I recall reading the reason R&R built that big corporate campus out in Research Park was that they were having trouble recruiting due to their downtown location (as opposed to Humana in Louisville, which has expanded by adaptive re-use of old riverfront buildings in Louisville and new downtown high rises)

 

I think the result is what we are seeing in Dayton, a modern sububurban edge city civilazation that is fairly healthy econmically  (a small version of northern Virginia or Aerospace Alley) and a weak city/urban culture.

 

Jeffrey, I don't think this is the case. You stated in past threads that the large amount of military people and ex-military who settle in the Dayton area contribute an anti-diverse, anti-urban mentality.

 

I tend to mostly agree. The ones I've known expect comfortable lives without being challenged by a range of differing ideas. (An ex Air Force guy I know said to me that he didn't like Google News because he thought it was too liberal.  :laugh: And Google News is automated.)

 

Don't blame the techies. Most of the local "civilian culture" engineers I have worked around have been what the writer Paul Fussel called in his book Class the "Class X" - semi-Bohemian non-comformists who really wish to not be associated with social ladder type thinking.

 

You mention that Dayton has a small version of the DC beltway defense scene going on. Yeah, except in prosperity levels. It's very weak compared to DC. I know of no engineers who are highly paid and find it "easy" to find work here.  So I don't think you will see that affluent anti-diversity mentality with this segment of the population. Typical engineers and technology people basically aren't paid enough here to get callous. So they tend to be "Class X" - they stand outside the social class system, like I do, and disparage it.  :whip:

 

These threads are helping me to form a better understanding of the local scene. "Why does Dayton suck?" In order: Appalachian population fused with northeastern union worker way of thinking; plus "jarhead" right leaning mentality of military people, current and ex; and a very, very sluggish local job growth prospect, exacerbated by a poor local technology culture that doesn't produce job growth. (I hope this isn't too much thread drift.)

Here's a little input from someone who grew up in Dayton as one of those "children of the tech migrants".  Only, my parents where able to stay here (came on a government contract for EDS and then switched over to a GMAC contract with the same company) throughout my high school career.  Now that I'm in college however, the possibility of them staying in the Dayton area has dramtically decreased.  On top of that, my mother just lost her position (due to outsourcing to Argentina) so the cahnces of her finding a local job is even less likely.  TheDonald summed up the local defense job scene nicely as many of my high school friends where children of base workers or defense contractors that relocated from either DC or Boston or overseas, all of which were ex-military. 

 

However, there are people that did leave the GMAC account at EDS and began working for CSC (new office in Beavercreek) when they came and hired en masse.  And the DOD even came to my house to interview my mother for someone else's security clearence when they took the job at CSC.  My personal take on that is CSC probably wanted to avoid as much relocation expenses as possible and thus tapped the local market, which is flooded by those let go from R&R, GM, EDS, etc.  CACI is now building a new office building across from CSC so hopefully my mom will have some luck there, but since my dad no longer trust EDS (letting go way too many senior employees is a bad sign to him) the chances of them both finding a job in the Dayton region is minimal.  Likely verdict, even though they say they are trying not to move, is that they will be going back to Northern Virginia/Maryland/DC.

 

As for me, I'm planning on entering the intelligence community (whether it's government or private contractors I cannot say) when I'm done with college.  With the exception of a few mid to high level positions at Wright-Pat, there's nothing in Ohio.  Likely verdict, I'll be moving out to either Southern California or DC metro.

I don't know about the defense side, but Lexis Nexis seems to be about 40% from out-of-town.  This might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing.

 

Allow me to vent about this company next.  :evil:

 

It has a very insular culture, like all Dayton institutions of any significance. They employ a disproportionate number of PhD's in various subject matter that is relevant to this information broker's activities.

 

I have known some people, including spouses of friends, who have worked at the place. What I have been told is:

 

The management is HIGHLY toxic and not conducive to brainstorming or innovation. (See notes below on the internet.)

 

The internal management has pedigrees from places like NCR, and is inbred.

 

Because the place is top-heavy with PhDs and advanced degrees, someone with a "mere" technology bachelor's is regarded as sort of a technician (grunt) there.

 

I have taken two interviews at the place. Each time, I was treated poorly. Each time, it was made very clear that I was not good enough to be considered for full time placement, but I was being considered as a contractor for "maintenance programming". I recall one lady manager who basically said to me that if they thought that a piece of work should take 8 billed hours, they DEMANDED that it take 8 hours and no more. I picked up intense vibes of this manager wanting to feel superior to me due to her role. I decided that Lexis-Nexis can go to hell.

 

The anti-innovative (very latter day Daytonian) management style can be attested by the fact that LN did very little in terms of "securing" the Internet. The big success stories of the 90s like Yahoo came out of college kids tinkering with handwritten web pages. With all of its supposed software expertise and its vast data warehouses, Lexis was ideally positioned to have OWNED the internet by 1997. But I am told they took until the late 90s to even deploy an internet gateway. And that deployment was born out of constant arguing by management geezers that it should not be done. In true Dayton fashion, Lexis-Nexis snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

So, none of this is authoritative and it's all anecdotal. But I have lots of stories like this one; Lexis is just one that anyone can verify instantly by observing that it's Google (started in 2000 or so) that is at the head of the internet industry, not Lexis.

^

I dont think any of the private sector IT firms here are that innovative as they deal with things like data warehousing, databases, and automated business forms.  None of this stuff sounds that cutting edge, IMO.

 

However, there are people that did leave the GMAC account at EDS and began working for CSC (new office in Beavercreek) when they came and hired en masse.  And the DOD even came to my house to interview my mother for someone else's security clearence when they took the job at CSC.  My personal take on that is CSC probably wanted to avoid as much relocation expenses as possible and thus tapped the local market, which is flooded by those let go from R&R, GM, EDS, etc.

 

Based on the firms you are listing this tells me the soft side of IT in Dayton is the private sector side.  I do know that CSC was hiring Lexoids who were still at Lexis, doing some local headhunting perhaps.

 

Anyway,  this Professional, Scientific, and Technical sector (which is more than IT workers) added about 11,000 positions between 1998 and 2006, so it is a growing sector in absolute numbers , not just growing as a % of the total work force. So maybe more positions in the sciences and non IT work?  Or it's just specialized IT as we've been saying.

 

I think one of the things I want to look at next is trends, how Dayton compares regionally in rate of growth of this sector.

 

 

 

 

I'd be curious to see how Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Houston and Austin rank on that chart.

Cleveland and Minneapolis for that matter, too. And this is NAICS data and not SOC, correct? If so, it would be interesting to see if there have been any significant shifts in the LQs in the past decade ... is Dayton's LQ climbing or shrinking. Or maybe even to do a shift-share analysis over a span of a couple years. What is this in raw percentage of Dayton's employment base? Is this a relatively large or relatively small sub-sector?