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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > May > 16 > Entry
Ellen Belcher: Bad times would have done in lesser place
“Montgomery lost 20% of jobs” read the top headline on Wednesday’s front page. And that wasn’t even the worst part.
More than one in two — 53 percent — of the county’s manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2001.
In one sense, George Zeller, the Cleveland economist who compiled the numbers for Ohio, didn’t unearth anything new. But Zeller used a less common statistical measure to quantify the drip-drip-drip loss of jobs that has been occurring in the last decade and that sometimes has gushed — when, for example, the Moraine truck plant closed or NCR announced it was leaving.
And, as if this compilation weren’t enough, these numbers don’t account for what happened in Dayton for two long decades before 2001 — when, for instance, Dayton Press, Dayton Tire, Frigidaire and NCR’s manufacturing operations were closing.
If you were looking just at the numbers from the last three decades and had never set foot in Dayton, you might assume the place has become a ghost town. How can any community take so many big and relentless hits and live to fight another day?
Look around, though. Can anyone really say Dayton has been defeated?
The untold story of this region is its resiliency. The fashionable notion of the day is that struggling, and especially manufacturing, communities have to “reinvent” themselves. But Dayton was doing that long before there was a name for the effort.
This is not to minimize the wrenching loss to individuals who’ve been put out of work recently, in this decade or earlier. The families that have been hurt by the various downturns and the ongoing loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs have, in many cases, been devastated.
Their situations are evident in whole neighborhoods that have been wrecked or weakened because formerly middle-class people had their livelihoods taken from them altogether or they’re simply earning far less. Reinventing yourself at 50, because all the rules have changed since you graduated from or quit high school, doesn’t require a plan. It demands becoming someone else; it’s really hard work.
But back to the wider community. Dayton didn’t fall and it is doing better than just still standing. Even as its population is smaller and less dense because of sprawl, the region is rich in amenities and assets that were created, grown and protected as the economic hurricanes just kept pounding away.
Look at downtown. The Schuster Center is the envy of much bigger communities. The Victoria Theatre sits across the street, and there’s nothing tired or small-town about it. RiverScape is lovely, and even now, there’s a new amphitheater being built. Who doesn’t enjoy Fifth Third Field?
Thirty years ago, the University of Dayton, Wright State University and Sinclair Community College were shells — physically and in reputation — of what they are today. The plethora of high-quality higher-education options that exists in Dayton — don’t forget Central State, with its focus on first-generation college-bound blacks — is amazing.
Why is Dayton so resilient? Why doesn’t it look like Youngstown?
Anchor institutions, especially Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, have been critical. But there are other factors, too.
The University of Dayton’s Richard Stock believes the region has been helped in bad times by the fact that the population is older. Most people’s pensions keep on coming regardless of what’s happening in the broader economy. He points specifically to Air Force retirees, which the region has in abundance.
Lavea Brachman, of the Greater Ohio Policy Center in Columbus, says Dayton’s philanthropic institutions don’t match Cleveland’s, but that they’re significant. Individuals — think Virginia Kettering, Oscar Boonshoft, the Mathile Family — and institutions, like the Dayton Foundation, have been steadying forces.
Brachman’s co-director, Gene Krebs, says that, going forward, what’s left of the manufacturing sector has been adept at moving away from dependence on the auto industry. He says preliminary numbers show that even after the job losses, Dayton is 56th among the country’s top 100 metropolitan regions for exports.
If those businesses are the survivors they appear to be, that could mean good things for the future.
Paul Leonard, Dayton’s former mayor and a former director of the Ohio Department of Development, said he thinks the lack of “mean political discourse” matters, too; when major problems or opportunities have come up, he said the region’s elected officials typically come together.
Finally, Montgomery County has an impressive history for not neglecting the poor. Its consolidated Human Services Levy and its respected Job Center, for example, are both investments and statements that people here don’t want the down and out to stay down, that there’s help for them.
More than 60,000 jobs are gone. But that’s not the whole picture.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, City of Dayton, Columns, Dayton Creative Class Initiative, Dayton's Arts Community, Economy, Education, Ellen Belcher, Higher Ed, Montgomery County, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
Comments
By Strong Workforce
May 16, 2010 11:37 AM | Link to this
The Dayton region has (so far) survived this recent downturn in the economy not due to its resiliency, nor due to the arts, etc. It survived for the same reason that a well-diversified stock portfolio survives economic downturns. The diversification and allocation of our non-manufacturing assets saved us all. If this region had been solely a manufacturing region, we certainly would have become another Youngstown.
By Phil
May 16, 2010 7:00 PM | Link to this
Let get real, Dayton is a shell of its former self. It will look like Youngstown if some major jobs don’t return. When the unemployment checks are no more and the weight of a culture that does not enjoy working or producing, then the ship will sink all the way to the bottom. Without these jobs and lots of them, it is over.
By Davidss2
May 19, 2010 3:04 PM | Link to this
Dayton is a welfare state city due to the previous mayor and the democrat attitudes through the decades. The current mayor’s solution is put up speed cameras and maybe more red-light cameras. Tax. Tax. Tax. I personally stay out of city limits as much as possible. I changed allergy doctors to avoid Grand and two of the city’s red light money machines. I did venture down for Chorus Line, but was glad to read that the Schuster has dayton police officers to protect the patrons coming and leaving—a female was in the crosswalk and had a Glock or something big tucked in her waist. I felt better. The previous visit downtown we parked early on the street and watched a local opening cars and checking them out while patrons for a snack shop in building at Ludlow and 1st were in the shop. We moved our car.————More red light cameras. That’s what we need. Get money from those venturesome fools who go to the Dragons games!!!
By richg
May 21, 2010 11:14 PM | Link to this
Once again Ellen Belcher belches out her liberal speel. Any mention of Central State and amazing should be that we are amazed that the college still exists when its record is so poor and it’s need is so low. FACT!!! Get real Belcher!