Loss cause!! (Dayton, Fairfield, Beavercreek: city hall, neighborhoods, construction)

[J. PRICE]

Sorry to say, but Dayton is a lost cause for me.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by J. PRICE

Sorry to say, but Dayton is a lost cause for me.

Ok. More awesome for the rest of us.

[joe from dayton]

Ummm, okay.

[SWOH]

The OP is an older individual who reminisces about the west side of the 1970s and earlier. He lives in California.

He is the OP of many other threads and does one hit wonders like this on his large thread. I'm not sure what his purpose is, because Dayton of 1970 is never coming back. The question is, would we want it back? I know I don't.

[Prettycoolinohio]

Lost*

[hensleya1]

Well, we are talking beyond the broadest numbers here - even though the city has declined from 250,000 to about 140,000 even as the region grew from ~850,000 to just over a million. He's probably witnessed the growth of the Dayton Mall, the construction of Fairfield Commons, and most recently the expansion at the Greene. If you can land a job on base and live in Beavercreek, you're doing great. Better than anyone in Dayton even back in its' heyday. And you couldn't give a flying fig about what happens on the other side of County Line Road. Meanwhile the neighborhoods in the city proper have largely disintegrated since then, especially on the west side of the river.

The Salem Mall is gone. NCR has picked up and left town. General Motors, Delphi, Inland, and Frigidaire are all gone. All we ever hear from City Hall is talk about how Nan has formed a new committee or task force to address an issue. And guess what, it never gets fixed, but a lot of people get paid to do a whole lot of talking. And then at the end of the day, they'll come back to the voters, empty bucket in hand, asking for more tax dollars.

[weatherphotographer]

Originally Posted by J. PRICE

Sorry to say, but Dayton is a lost cause for me.

Old news. And it'll stay that way as long as Kasich is governor

[weatherphotographer]

Originally Posted by OHKID

The question is, would we want it back? I know I don't.

Gotta ask, why?

[jfre81]

I just got here, so I'm not colored by long-ago memories of past glory.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

If you can land a job on base and live in Beavercreek, you're doing great. Better than anyone in Dayton even back in its' heyday. And you couldn't give a flying fig about what happens on the other side of County Line Road.

I disagree. If a few blighted neighborhoods are in decline, while the overall metro area does well, then indeed persons outside of those blighted areas might reasonably not care. But if only a handful of towns and townships are doing well, while the overall region is mired in economic malaise, then that local prosperity is small consolation.

Consider a person who works at Wright-Patt. Where will that person's spouse work? If they have kids, those kids might have a reasonable high-school education (in Beavercreek, Centerville, Oakwood or Bellbrook), but would they return to the region after college? If the overall economic opportunity is paltry, we all feel adverse effects, even if our particular neighborhoods are safe and comparatively affluent.

And what about that thriving W-P employee who is single? Where will that employee seek a spouse?

Dayton isn't a "lost cause", but it's a cause rife with setbacks and complications. Much the same is true throughout the vast region between the Alleghenies and the Rockies, except for a few urban metro areas who have managed to reinvent themselves in the modern world.