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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 > June > 21
Monday, June 21, 2010
Editorial: Downsizing in Dayton doesn’t have to be all bad
Maybe it’s just Americans, or maybe it’s human nature, but when things get worse, people naturally think about fixing them and getting back to “normal.”
Sometimes, though, “normal” is gone for good (and for bad). That’s the situation with a lot of central cities in and around Ohio, places like Cleveland, Dayton and Youngstown. They have shrunk dramatically in population. That process has been going on for decades, but in some places it has accelerated in the last decade, with the foreclosure crisis.
Dayton’s population was down from a quarter million to more like 165,000 in 2000 and is continuing to shrink. Some people think Cleveland has lost 150,000 people just since the 2000 Census, bringing it down to about 325,000, strikingly close to Dayton at its peak.
Perhaps a day will come when the numbers start back up. Certainly, some central city neighborhoods across the country have seen revivals as young people, especially, have discovered the charms of city life.
But the reality is that Dayton’s numbers aren’t going to climb quickly or any time soon. Dayton-area residents lack at least one motivation for moving into the city that is powerful in bigger cities: they aren’t looking to avoid awful commutes.
Meanwhile, the metropolitan area also isn’t growing. And then there’s the matter of the national economy.
The right goal now is to come to terms with the smaller population and to look for advantages to the population decline. It’s not, after all, as if the cities in question used to be problem-less. It’s not as if every possible change is for the worse.
Are there uses that can be made of space that has been vacated, uses that make the city more attractive, that make life better?
In some neighborhoods, people are using formerly empty spots as community gardens and are cultivating food that’s healthy, not to mention cheap. Parks and other kinds of community gathering spots are being created.
Meanwhile, “smart downsizing” is the talk of urban planners, certainly in this part of the country. That effort has begun here in the form, for example, of an ongoing program to demolish abandoned houses that are a blight on neighborhoods and a draw for drug dealers and other bad elements. Getting rid of these places is a good idea.
However, the abandonment of houses in Dayton and elsewhere does not necessarily mean that they all have to go. People, including out-of-towners, have found that fixing them up and renting them can be profitable.
With all the homeowners who have been foreclosed upon — and all the others who can’t afford to buy right now— renting old houses could have a good future. But, of course, the surrounding neighborhoods have to be attractive.
Considering what’s happening to housing locally, it’s good to see Habitat for Humanity talking about repairing and refurbishing homes, not just building new ones.
The national headquarters of Habitat is encouraging affiliates toward rehabbing. Dayton Habitat is hoping to be one of Habitat’s 50 to 60 pilot projects under a new Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative.
The formula for reviving Ohio cities and getting them a lease on a new kind of life hasn’t necessarily been found. But a change in mindset — a recognition of the up sides of shrinkage, combined with a determination to confront the obvious down sides — is a good way to start.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Predatory lending
Editorial: Best minds have to help fill airport job
Dayton’s airport is, well, up in the air. Its last director, Iftikhar Ahmad, left last month for New Orleans, and City Manager Tim Riordan hasn’t decided how to pick a replacement. He’s leaning toward doing a national search.
The selection process can’t be botched. Airports are like airplanes; they can crash. Just look at what’s been happening in Cincinnati. Meanwhile, Dayton’s airport, under Mr. Ahmad, has made incredible improvements. There are threats hovering, though.
A big concern is Cincinnati, which historically has had some of the highest fares in the country. Now that Delta has slashed its number of flights there, resulting in the closing of an entire 22-gate concourse, airport administrators are hunting hard for new carriers to bring into its half-empty facility.
Kentucky, where the airport is situated just across the river, is making noises about spending state money to do whatever it has to do to bring flights and jobs to the facility. Depending on what incentives are offered, Dayton and Columbus could see their airports feeling more competition.
Also, if Cincinnati is successful in luring a low-cost carrier — which it has been trying to do for years — that could hurt Dayton’s traffic. A lot of people who ideally would like to fly out of Cincinnati are driving to Dayton for cheaper flights or to fly AirTran and Frontier.
If they had a good option in Cincinnati, they’d take it, which is a point Cincinnati airport officials are pitching to carriers.
The lucky thing, for the moment anyway, is that airlines are hurting so much that there’s not much interest in the industry to buy more planes or expand.
But it’s important to keep in mind just how eager Cincinnati is to overcome the industry’s mood. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, since 2003, the airport has lost more than two-thirds of its flights, and since 2005, “a third of 16,000 jobs and half the passengers have left.”
It is setting aside $1 million for marketing new carriers, and it’s pointing to a study that shows it has the lowest ratio of passengers-to population among similarly sized cities.
That prompted the new airport director, John Mok, to tell the Cincinnati Enquirer in March, “Where would you rather be if you were a carrier: Dayton or Cincinnati?”
When Mr. Ahmad was here, he slashed the fees airlines pay the airport. He also was relentless about working the industry. Whoever follows him has to have the ability to continue that work — and there shouldn’t be too long of a lull in assuring carriers that Dayton remains in good and capable hands.
Airports matter to businesses that need good and frequent flights. Dayton’s airport also is surrounded by land that has all sorts of development possibilities — if aggressive people are doing the recruiting and marketing.
Mr. Ahmad left for a bigger challenge (rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina) and more pay. (He got a more than $70,000-a-year raise.) The fact that he left Dayton in good shape helps make his old job appealing to an airport executive hoping to move up.
When the vetting process gets going, it has to be done by people who understand that they’re making an important decision, one that matters to the region. And they have to get the choice right.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Transportation
