Some Numbers For People Moving To Dayton (Kettering, Moraine: fit in, sales)

[CarpathianPeasant]

You won't find much about Dayton itself in this web-site room. Here are a few numbers you might want to keep in mind:


There are eight riverbanks in the city. If you are accustomed to stopping either physically or thought-wise when you come to a body of water, you may get a little disoriented, especially in the northern part of the city. What you want may be on the other side of the river, and you are still in the city.

Some people once wanted to name the town "Venice."

There are seven national Landmarks. There are other lesser history type things, too, and if you sense a weightyness in history stuff, you may find it hard to move around. There are a couple of more things proposed for Landmarks.

One historic overlay is a distance of about seventy-eighty miles going both north-south and east-west with Dayton more or less at the center.

There are six government people running the place, four city-commissioners, a mayor and a city manager. If you are accustomed to saying, "City Council" you speak a different language. It's a commission, and no more. Same with "Talk to the mayor." The city manager runs things.

Dayton pioneered the form of government; others only copied. (Some consider it sacred.)

There once were five General Motors factories to boast over, the most famous probably being Frigidaire. Delco was also well known. One former U.S. President's father-in-law reportedly ran Inland.

General Motors is a common term and a very sore point in Dayton.

There are four directions labeled on the streets of the city: north, south, east and west. If you are from somewhere that only has three main directions, you have to remember the fourth.

Not all towns with four directions are small.

There once were three county courthouses. Powers that be managed to tear down one of them, but there are still two courthouses, one to use and one to look at. there's other court stuff, too. The town's legal-minded to some extent.

The law school was discontinued for a number of years.

There were two famous brothers, but it's a differernt kind of fame. Because of them, people have a heritage of high-minded futuristic thought and expectation. The family did many cultural things differently.

The United States Air Force has a home, Dayton.

There's a Civil War monument. If you are from the south, you may find it an annoyance in principle. If you are from the north, you may find it a curiosity. If you are local, you might know of it as a traffic bottle-neck.

Monuments are points for recollection.

There are other numbers to remember, too, like there are seven priority boards, five flood control dams.... There's plenty of time later for some more.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by CarpathianPeasant

General Motors is a common term and a very sore point in Dayton.

Hi CarpathianPeasant--

That's one thing I've noticed after being in Dayton for a year now. There's a truly appalling number of Chevy Cavalier's and Pontiac Grand Prix out there on Dayton roads - I'd wager that every other car is one of those two. It never made sense, because in my opinion those are two of the worst cars General Motors managed to make in the past decade. Knobs falling off, control arms giving out, transmission woes, electric woes, windows not working, etc.

But given GM's extensive presence in Dayton up until recently - you mention Frigidaire and Delco, and in more recent memory Delphi and GM's Moraine plant - probably meant that all those guys got employee discounts for buying GM cars.

And that makes much more sense.

You DO realize that the Moraine plant was singled out by the UAW for not reopening after GM got out of bankruptcy, right?

UAW Freezes Rival Out of Rebound

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

You DO realize that the Moraine plant was singled out by the UAW for not reopening after GM got out of bankruptcy, right?

I was living in Dayton when it closed. It was NEVER going to reopen.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by TomJones123

I was living in Dayton when it closed. It was NEVER going to reopen.

Hi TomJones123--

The million dollar question here is why won't it reopen? There's no indicator that SUV sales dropped off and stayed there like they did in 2008. There's nothing that says the plant couldn't have retooled to build more fuel efficient cars. Maybe they could have built the Chevy Cruze and Sonic in Moraine, instead of Lordstown (which has a long history of producing truly terrible cars). If the plant had reopened in at least some capacity, then there would have been a strong incentive for Delphi or another parts maker to remain in the area, too. That adds up to thousands of jobs.

But we must come to terms that the bailout was a shameless power grab by the UAW. They guaranteed their position by securing a significant stake in the new GM, did not restructure GM's overhead debts or long term liabilities, froze out all competition including the IUE-CWA, and most importantly have done nothing to resolve GM's continuing quality issues.

GM has posted a record profit in the past two years because the government has allowed GM to write off the losses from the old GM, even though it's legally a different entity. Thus, GM has paid zero federal taxes since the bailout. That's why they have such big fat profits, but the market knows better, and it's why their stock continues to underperform. GM's stock will take decades to recover to its $38 IPO, much less the $55 it needs to be for taxpayers to get their money back - which may never happen.

[/end anti-Gov't Motors rant]

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

The million dollar question here is why won't it reopen?

Your million dollar question is a moot point. When they closed it was always for good - end of story.

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

Hi CarpathianPeasant--

That's one thing I've noticed after being in Dayton for a year now. There's a truly appalling number of Chevy Cavalier's and Pontiac Grand Prix out there on Dayton roads - I'd wager that every other car is one of those two. It never made sense, because in my opinion those are two of the worst cars General Motors managed to make in the past decade. Knobs falling off, control arms giving out, transmission woes, electric woes, windows not working, etc.

But given GM's extensive presence in Dayton up until recently - you mention Frigidaire and Delco, and in more recent memory Delphi and GM's Moraine plant - probably meant that all those guys got employee discounts for buying GM cars.

And that makes much more sense.

Some kind of money may or may not be a factor, but there are other considerations as well if you are talking about (name your mega) corporation.

If your brother-in-law, uncle and grandfather -- all hard-working responsible people -- worked for General Motors and believed in the products, would it really be good sense to believe some other people instead? Likewise, be it housing construction, a suit of clothes or whatever, if the good people in your world who care about you tell you something is crap, believe them.

To carry the point a little farther, it's also a matter of believing in your country. Just last week I got a prescription medicine, which, when I got to the end of all the enclosed and attached papers, said "Made in India." Well, I trust the drug store, the nurse and the British website where I posted an inquiry, so I may take the stuff. I know the people of India are not stupid, just often disadvantaged, but I don't know much about companies in India.

My "General Motors rude awakening" came when I heard that they were going to discontinue Oldsmobile, their styling horse. Granted Ted Kennedy driving one into the water and allowing a girl to drown wasn't the best publicity in the world and may have reflected on an image some people wanted to project, but it shouldn't have had that much of an effect.

People probably drive the cars they drive because that's what they've got. And, I mentioned Frigidaire because I have never ceased to admire those plain ordinary factory workers at Frigidaire that took a chance and dumped their pink-tinged union and created a new one.... (Which was a shade before my time.)

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by CarpathianPeasant

There's plenty of time later for some more.

Well, I enjoyed what you posted before it was hi-jacked into a political soap box on GM.

Personally, I would like to hear more. Thanks Peasant!

[Ohioan58]

I grew up in a single generation GM family in Dayton. My father started with GM a few years after WWII and retired from GM in 1981. About 1/3 of the families in my neighborhood worked at GM.

My dad called the company "Generous Motors". Only GM cars were an conceivable option. One primary reason is because the GM guys received employee discounts. The discount was sufficient to allow him to "flip" the car after a year (I think he was not allowed to sell the car for 1 year) and perhaps make a tiny profit. IE, he could buy new cars that were already priced with a "depreciation" discount, and essentially drive the car for free. He also got engineering test cars at a substantial discount.

Besides that, my dad's generation had a strong anti-Japanese bias. A friend from the neighborhood bought a Toyota and his father sneered at the "j.a.p. rice burner." I think that bias was drying up in the Dayton area by the late 1980s but it stuck around a looong time (when I moved out of Dayton to California for my first job, I was amazed at how *few* domestic cars were on the road there.)

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by CarpathianPeasant

If your brother-in-law, uncle and grandfather -- all hard-working responsible people -- worked for General Motors and believed in the products, would it really be good sense to believe some other people instead? Likewise, be it housing construction, a suit of clothes or whatever, if the good people in your world who care about you tell you something is crap, believe them.

Hi CarpathianPeasant--

That's an interesting way to put it, especially since I was never raised on that 'GM mentality'. As a kid, I remember the family car being a Mazda Protege, and except for the notoriously unreliable axles (that have been replaced about once every three-four years), that car was bulletproof. In fact, it's still running today, elsewhere in the family. In hindsight we should have kept that damn car.

That was followed by multiple Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Chevrolet's over the next decade. All were absolute rubbish, in the shop for one reason or another.

I took a leap on a Toyota about six years ago and haven't looked back. That childhood experience was, for me, enough to swear off GM products forever. It's reinforced daily by friends who own GM cars (I mentioned the Grand Prix and the Chevy Cavalier by name because of multiple stories to that effect) and they are constantly shelling out the bucks to fix that knob, this headlight, that control arm, etc. So, in essence, I've reached the exact opposite conclusion that the GM families reached.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

Besides that, my dad's generation had a strong anti-Japanese bias. A friend from the neighborhood bought a Toyota and his father sneered at the "j.a.p. rice burner." I think that bias was drying up in the Dayton area by the late 1980s but it stuck around a looong time (when I moved out of Dayton to California for my first job, I was amazed at how *few* domestic cars were on the road there.)

Hi Ohioan58--

Believe me, among the blue collar neighborhoods of Dayton, Moraine, Kettering, etc. it's still there.