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Dayton metro area gets 9th worst ranking in U.S.

Region still suffering from job loss, stagnation, survey finds

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By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 9:18 AM Wednesday, June 16, 2010

DAYTON — The Dayton area ranks in the bottom 10 among the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas in both loss of employment and loss of economic activity since 2004, a new report by the Brookings Institution has found.

Through the end of March of this year, the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area — which is comprised of Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Preble counties — saw an 11 percent drop in employment and 4.1 percent drop in goods and services produced as compared to the third quarter of 2004, when employment and economic production reached their peak among the metro areas. Both of the Dayton MSA’s figures ranked ninth-worst among the 100 largest metro areas.

Dayton’s 11 percent employment drop almost doubles the 6.4 percent average drop for the 100 metro areas and the 6.1 percent drop for the nation as a whole. The loss in gross metropolitan product was much larger than the 0.2 percent drop for the 100 metros and 0.8 percent growth for the nation.

The report is another look at familiar bad news for Dayton and other Ohio metro areas, said Jennifer Bradley, senior research assistant for the Brookings Institution.

“It’s sobering to see that a lot of Ohio metros, particularly those that have been especially dependent upon the auto industry are really struggling,” said Bradley, who also co-directs the Washington D.C.-based institution’s Great Lakes Economic Initiative.

“On the other hand, some of the Ohio metros and places like Detroit can perhaps look to some of the metros in the Great Lakes that are doing somewhat better and have weathered the recession better.”

Of the 21 metro areas in the Great Lakes region, four — Rochester and Buffalo, N.Y., along with Madison, Wis. and Des Moines, Iowa — were in the top 20 nationwide in economic performance for the first three months of 2010.

“These are not home to headquarters of Microsoft, or the big, shiny, next-economy industries,” Bradley said. “So what did Rochester and Buffalo and Syracuse do? What enabled them to make a transition to a healthier, more balanced economy that’s not so prone to recession?”

Perhaps one bright spot for the Dayton area was that it fared much better than most in housing price decline. The region ranked 37th out of 100 in the drop in housing prices over the last three years. Prices in the region dropped 11.0 percent, about half of the 21.4 percent average drop among all the metro areas.

By comparison, the worst housing drops over three years were in Modesto and Stockton, Calif., where prices dived a whopping 55.5 and 55.3 percent. Las Vegas dropped 53.4 percent over three years and almost 22 percent last year alone.

“Dayton didn’t have the big bubble” that occurred in many Western regions and Florida, she said. “You had all the fall, but none of the spike.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Downloadable a copy of the complete report: