Dayton a "Most Creative Mid-sized City" (makes a top 10 list) (Kettering: real estate)

[Dayton Sux]

...mainly on the strength of the local performing arts scene:

Dayton named No. 4 most creative mid-sized city in U.S.

Dayton is the No. 4 most creative mid-sized metro in the
U.S., according to real estate blog Movoto, which ranked mid-sized cities based on the concentration of art supplies stores, art galleries and performing arts organizations

The top 10 list (& i note 3 of these...Pasadena, Torrance, and Tempe, are suburbs and another 3...Eugene, Knoxville, & Ft Collins) are quasi-college towns:

1. Salt Lake City, UT
2. Pasadena, CA
3. Richmond, VA
4. Dayton, OH
5. Torrance, CA
6. Fort Collins, CO
7. Columbia, SC
8. Eugene, OR
9. Knoxville, TN
10. Tempe, AZ

[Dayton Sux]

I've noticed that community theatre is pretty popular around here.

Most cities have an "equity" company, as in professional theatre. Dayton's is The Human Race.

What Dayton also has are two additional fairly good amatuer companies in the Theatre Guild and the Dayton Playhouse (I can attest to the Playhouse putting on suprisingly good productions but havnt been to the Theatre Guild yet), plus additional community and childrens theatre out in suburban and outlying communities.

[CarpathianPeasant]

I saw that, too. So much for manufacturing.

[Dayton Sux]

No reason you cant have both!

[hensleya1]

They evidently used to make a lot of things around here, and there's no reason to say it can't happen again. The people are still around here, even though the employers have left town.

Delco... the descendent of which is today's ACDelco (and still does electronics) is an acronym for "Dayton Electronic Lab Company".

Charles Kettering had how many patents and inventions through NCR and other companies - Freon, the starter motor, credit cards, electric cash registers?

Pretty sure Mead used to make stuff in the area, too.

I'm sure the locals/natives can expand on this more than I have, though.

[SWOH]

^Dayton used to have the most inventions per capita. I think we still rank highly in this category, but any new innovation spawning from here now almost exclusively comes from WPAFB.


Overall, Top 10 rankings are Top 10 rankings, but I do agree we have a wide array of cultural assets for a city of our size. It seems to me that Dayton would be a logical place for artists, performers, and other creative types to get a start because the cost of living and barriers to entry to perform are very low.

If there was any way we could take this energy and translate it to the creative field of entrepreneurship, that would help our economy tremendously. I'm still sad a lot of the old Delphi factory space was demolished as quickly as it was - keeping one of those facilities out to turn into a small business incubator for all of Montgomery County would have been very forward thinking.