Dayton Regionalism (Cincinnati, Fairfield, Beavercreek: loans, tenants, construction)

[RDriesenUD]

Leaders talk Dayton-Cincinnati regionalism at Southwest forum - Dayton Business Journal

[hensleya1]

For all the talk about the "benefits" that regionalism brings, they seem to be exclusively benefits that are conferred on the city. Nothing's ever talked about how the benefits will benefit those who live in suburbs or other outlying areas... I believe this is because there are no such benefits, but I'm opening the door to anyone who can point out if there are any benefits of say, Washington Township merging with Dayton?

A few points to make:

1) The "larger cities can reduce duplication" argument falls flat for one reason never mentioned here: the larger the city is, the more expensive local government becomes. A larger city, especially one with a poorly performing school district, will be forced to pay significantly higher salaries and pensions to attract the necessary talent to run the place properly. Killing the residency requirement helps a bit, but the truth is you still need to pay a competitive salary to offset the cost of doing business in the city.

By contrast, the jobs in smaller jurisdictions are often part-time in nature, paying far less, and also being far more accountable to the voters because a few noisy people who pack a township trustee's meeting have a better chance of influencing the powers that be.

Local Government in Ohio: More Accessible and More Efficient | Newgeography.com



2) Other benefits touted by regionalism advocates often include the creation of jobs or bringing money to the area. This is done, supposedly, because the city is now "larger" and thus higher in line to get federal or state grants, incentives, etc.

But most suburbs have no shortage of jobs. Kettering has plenty of employers. So does Miamisburg, Centerville, Beavercreek, you name it. Their tax bases are solid, more or less, despite the generally depressed state of the housing market.

Suburban roads are generally better, more modern, and well maintained compared to the roads in the city, despite all the talk about funding shortfalls. The overwhelming majority of roads and bridges that need urgent replacement are, you guessed it, in the city.

***

So again, tell me how does the outlying area benefit from being merged with a failing core city?

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

So again, tell me how does the outlying area benefit from being merged with a failing core city?

Good thing I like hillbillies.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

So again, tell me how does the outlying area benefit from being merged with a failing core city?

Neither Dayton or Cincy is a 'failing core city', so not relevant. Also, not all suburbs are the same: Kettering and Beavercreek are more urban suburbs than Germantown. Sprawl is unsustainable--Liberty Center in Butler Twp is trying to poach business from Austin Landing as Austin Landing tries to poach from the Greene.

[Dayton Sux]

^
I don't think this will solve that, but it will mean a consolidated city-county planning and zoning and economic development.

@@@

One way to think merger is the "New Donut" concept:

The Urbanophile » Blog Archive » The New Donut

Now this is pretty diagrammic....but pretty much applies to Dayton.

You see this in the population figures. Wendell Cox cranked the numbers and found that major metro areas
gained 206,000 residents in the two mile radius from the center, but lost
272,000 residents from the 2-5 mile ring. Growth picked up strongly beyond that
arc. This is the new donut area, though the start and end of it vary by metro
and some have thicker rings of challenge than others.



We’ve got three decades of experience in downtown revitalization, but much
less in dealing with this newer challenge zone. I’ve said that suburban
revitalization may prove to be the big 21st century “urban” challenge.

Basically that outer neighborhood/older suburb thing applies to Dayton, especially to places like Huber, Riverside, and parts of Kettering, and you could even say Trotwood & West Carollton and Vandalia.

[Dayton Sux]

From what I understand, much of Drexel and Jefferson Township is such a
dump anyway ... why would any sane person want to selectively annex it except as
part of an "annex all" plan?

Yes, Drexel is pretty interesting as a sort of failed suburb. Believe it or not the heart of Drexel is pretty old, was platted in the 1890s or early 1900s. A plat too far, methinks.

Anywhoo....

If you get beyond the US 35 corridor and get deeper into Jeff Twp it isn't that bad. There are areas here where the black middle class moved to when they left the city, when apparently there was an attempt to do segregated suburbia (like they had down south).

But try to get your mind around the concept of more-or-less rural Western Montgomery County as part of the City of Dayton. Maybe we should rename in Montgomery? " Make me an Angel/ that Flys from Montgomery"....hum a few bars....lol.....


@@@

I say break up the city and allow the suburbs to take on the
neighboring areas, or create an inner ring of suburbs.

The former planning director Paul Woodie had this very idea. He was thinking about London, England, which is really a conglomeration of neighborhood & small area governments. But I suggest that if you did do this you'd a some of the former inner city areas that would become "suburbs" end up like Camden NJ or Braddock PA, or, closer to home, Lincoln Heights (off of I-75 by the GE plant):
What Happened to Lincoln Heights, One of America's First Black Suburbs - The Atlantic.

Despite the endless bellyaching here about local government, it is relatively fiscally responsible. Dayton City never was in the dire fiscal straights places like Detroit, Harrisburg, and other places were. The city is well-managed enough that they balance their budget (which is a statutory requirement in Ohio), and do it by not raiding their enterprise funds (the water department budget, for example)....so they do do cutback management if they need to.

This is not to say that local government...suburban as well as city...is not expensive. Brookings did a study on this and found Ohio ranks in the top ten for cost of local government....and I think you can thank the city income tax for that, as well as public safety unions (like FOP) and other public employees unions (AFCSME).

@@@@

[Dayton Sux]

I'm thinking this merger thing could be something positive and perhaps innovative.

...keeping an open mind about it. It could really put this area on the map again as an innovator in local governance, like it was in the Progressive Era.

In fact it would put Dayton on the map if only for the fact the mergers like this are so rare.

[RDriesenUD]

Originally Posted by Dayton Sux

^
I don't think this will solve that, but it will mean a consolidated city-county planning and zoning and economic development.

@@@

One way to think merger is the "New Donut" concept:

The Urbanophile » Blog Archive » The New Donut

Now this is pretty diagrammic....but pretty much applies to Dayton.



Basically that outer neighborhood/older suburb thing applies to Dayton, especially to places like Huber, Riverside, and parts of Kettering, and you could even say Trotwood & West Carollton and Vandalia.

Good post.

[SWOH]

Originally Posted by Dayton Sux

I'm thinking this merger thing could be something positive and perhaps innovative.

...keeping an open mind about it. It could really put this area on the map again as an innovator in local governance, like it was in the Progressive Era.

In fact it would put Dayton on the map if only for the fact the mergers like this are so rare.

I'd agree.

I posted a retort to Esrati's closed minded, shoot it down mentality towards this proposal on his blog. It didn't go over well. But I agree 100% with this, we don't know enough about it yet and at the very least I'm thrilled that someone is trying to make the area better. (thinking back on it, my retort was probably too mean, but regardless I had a point to get across).


Anyways, most everyone else seems to be 100% against this idea, off the bat, without even a shred of an idea of what it would actually entail.
It's going to be a hard case to sell, so I'm hoping for their sake they come out with an A+ proposal.


Because I still don't know how I feel about it, but I do know I would like to hear more.

[hensleya1]

I had a great post typed up but my computer decided to hit me with one of those pop-up "restart the computer now" boxes and voila, my post was gone. So here's the short version.

1) Anyone who considers Cincy to be a success story clearly hasn't set foot in Price Hill or Westwood in the past thirty years. I have. People are leaving there faster than ever because of the lack of the city's investment in the neighborhoods. OTR and the Banks get all the headlines, but the neighborhoods are struggling, badly.

2) Austin Landing isn't perfect. But Austin Landing is one of the best things that could have happened to Dayton. It's provided some of the only new commercial construction that this area has seen. But-for this new construction, many companies, rather than continuing to stay downtown, may have just abandoned their Dayton operations altogether.

Yes, Austin Landing is eating downtown's lunch and Randy Gunlock is laughing all the way to the bank. But rather than hearing how the city wants to retain jobs, I hear more of the "woe is me" rhetoric from the city's political leaders followed by political or legislative attempts to make "urban sprawl" more difficult... or worse, "regionalism" which is just a byword for funneling suburban tax dollars back into the failed core city.