To feel the love from a city that is in many ways similar to ours is pretty dang cool.
Columnist Keith Burris, who wrote the piece, went to the University of Dayton in the early 1970's and recalls some of his fond memories of the place.
But he moves beyond that quickly to address the far more pressing matters at hand for any post-industrial city: what it means to reinvent ourselves, to create opportunity in what was a once-bleak economic landscape.
On reinvention, Burris writes:
"Dayton is doing a better job than we are: It is third in the nation in high-tech job growth. It has twice been singled out by Site Selection magazine as one of the top medium-size cities for economic development. Bloomberg Businessweek hailed Dayton as a great place for a college graduate to get a job."
So from Burris' perspective, what's helped Dayton rebound?
"Stephanie Precht of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce told me that Dayton’s comeback has been built on new small businesses of five to 10 people that grew to 20 to 30. A diversity of industry. Second, on the local government being friendly and welcoming and then staying out of the way. And, third, on the health-care industry — spurred by Obamacare."
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