Is Dayton a dying city? Forbes says yes.

[poltr1]

Earlier this week, Forbes magazine had a list of 10 cities that, in their estimation, were dying. The list includes my home town of Buffalo, New York, and my current city of residence: Dayton, Ohio. Their rankings were based on population decline, unemployment, and annualized GDP growth.

I'd have to agree with Forbes. The local GM plant in Moraine is scheduled to close in two years, and last week, they announced that they were getting rid of all 2nd shift workers. Tech Town, a high-tech business incubator project just east of downtown Dayton, hasn't visibly progressed beyond the initial groundbreaking.

Dayton is the home to NCR (once known as National Cash Register), their spin-off Teradata, Lexis-Nexis, Reynolds and Reynolds, their spin-off Workflow One, Standard Register, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, to name a few of the major IT players in town. Despite the rich history of innovation here, it's tough to get a job in the area. That's one of the reasons why I'm considering relocating to either Cincinnati or Columbus.

Today's shout-outs: Happy belated birthday zencuppa!

Comments

[athenawindsong.livejournal.com]

I have two major issues with Cincinasty: sprawl and its resulting non-existant traffic flow. There seems to be no thought put into urban planning whatsoever. Also, clean the place up! It looks so dingy all the time, the buildings are crumbling apart, and the whole city is in need of revitalization.

Additionally, I would love to tell the people who live there to QUIT PARKING ON THE STREET, IMPEDING TRAFFIC FLOW!!

[zorya-thinks.livejournal.com]

I dunno about that. I agree with this guy:

http://daytonlocal.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-forbes-is-not-merely-wrong.html

I visited Blytheville, Arkansas about 10 years after the AF base there had closed. Now that was a dying town. Problem was the powers that be had fixed their sights on FedEx relocating to the base and use the runway and it didn't happen. They floundered for years before they developed some ideas to attract new business and by then it was close to too late. Or it might have been too late. Tom and I decided that we wouldn't revisit the town as it was too painful to see the deterioration.

If the powers that be in Dayton and the suburbs can get it through their heads that Delphi and GM are gone forever perhaps they can refocus on what they can attract here.