Young family- interviewing for job in Dayton, cute town or communities close?

[kp8888]

I meant, considering a job in Columbus as well...

[ohio_peasant]

I'd hasten to add that it's important to note a quirk of Ohio: local income taxes. Taxes in Dayton-city and in Oakwood are high. In Washington Township, and most other townships, there is no local income tax (some townships do have a "school district tax"). It's also true that a larger town/suburb, such as Kettering, might differ substantially from one end to the other. Parts are new, fairly affluent, and offer impressive (by local standards) housing. Others, rather less so.

As concerns outlying towns with cute/traditional downtowns, it's also worth mentioning Troy, north of Dayton, and Wilmington, south-east of Dayton. Both might be long commutes (depending on where the OP's husband will be working, of course), but are worthy of consideration in terms of walkability and small-town appeal. But do be wary of the local taxes! Sometimes the best option is to live in the township adjacent to town, outside of city-limits, but within a short drive of the town center.

[wrightflyer]

Originally Posted by kp8888

I meant, considering a job in Columbus as well...

My bad. Columbus offers a robust job market as well. I think it is more white-collar oriented, especially in banking/finance and retail/restaurant/hospitality industries.

Chase has major operations, mostly out near Polaris, as well as downtown Columbus. Huntington Bank is HQ'd downtown. US Bank also has a large presence. Retail includes mega-chain L Brands (Victoria Secret's, Bath & Body Works, White Barn), Express, Lane Bryant, Justice/Tween Brands, Big Lots, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Restaurants/Hospitality include Cameron Mitchell Family (Rusty Bucket, other local favorites), Bravo/Brio Group, and Red Roof Inn's HQ. Insurance is another large industry with Nationwide's HQ also being downtown. Cardinal Health, a Fortune 50 company, is HQ'd in Dublin.

Dayton, meanwhile, doesn't have nearly as much white-collar work. What it lacks there it makes up in manufacturing and more traditional blue-collar work. With automation, these are not the heavy employment industries of the past and many now require specific trade skills and crafts. Gone are the days when a HS degree (or less) could hold you at $20+/hour on an assembly line. Many may mourn the passing of that system, but it is what it is. If you want to compete in the global economy, education (technical or collegiate) is important. I constantly see articles speaking of the number of job openings in the Dayton region, many going unfilled for months. This isn't because of a lack of people, but a lack of people with the right skill sets. Fuyao Industries is building up a presence in glass assembly. Behr hired and expanded its Dayton ops. The biggest hits to white-collar work happened during/before the recession. Mead's HQ left in the early 2000's after a merger. And NCR packed up and left without telling anyone in advance for Georgia, leaving a bad taste in many mouths. It became so nasty that it was a large influence on voters in this area choosing not to reelect Strickland to the state Governorship back in 2010.

Defense and the Defense Department are the other large industries in Dayton (or its surroundings). Every major defense company has some presence, large or small in Dayton or its suburbs. Northrup Grumman buys local advertising because of the number of influencers in Dayton's broadcast area who make decisions for Air Force and military purchases. As an extension of the engineering roles around the base and its Air Force Research Laboratory HQ site, there are plenty of engineering jobs in Dayton too. Most require some skill set in defense (and some require a level of security clearance, though there are many that do not as well). Dayton consistently ranks around the top 5-10 nationally for number of engineers per head in its regional population.

It creates quite a dichotomy in the regional economy, with many of the manufacturing, blue-collar families having lost out big in the economic recession of 2007-2009. Their jobs never returned, many from descendants of Kentucky and West Virginia hill country folks who came in the first half of the 20th century for factory jobs. Whereas, many of the high-paying defense and engineering employees tend to be from out of the area, were not hurt nearly as bad in the recession, and live in the wealthier suburbs. They place a high value on education (partly because they have reaped the benefits of higher-education). It would make an interesting economic or urban studies thesis or research study. But I digress.

Basically, depending on what your husband does, OP, you will probably find better fits in a certain metro over another. These aren't inclusive to everything in either metro. I.e. there are software/IT positions across both. Same with administrative and managerial positions. The point of this post is to show what each regions (Dayton and Columbus) offerings are in terms of employment industries.

Hope this helps a little in understanding the areas differences!

[kp8888]

Thanks Wrightflyer! Good to hear there is at least one white-collar industry strong in Dayton...engineering. My husband is a landscape architect in high-end design/build residential. So being in an area with affluent house market for his career is important. I am a corporate recruiter, work from home for a Fortune 500. As a recruiter I just want to make sure down the road there could be job options for me if I ever switch companies. Luckily I can keep my current job even though we could move.

We just got back from a trip to Dayton, Mason and Columbus this weekend. Saw quite a bit!

We loved the Oakwood neighborhood. Didn't really venture to other towns b/c we liked it so much. Very walkable, close to schools, parks, shops, etc. Seems like a great place to raise children. It reminded me of Louisville (Lexington rd, st matthews area). But I found it odd that there were limited restaurants in the area though, looks like you have to go to downtown Dayton for that? Does Dayton have a lot of community events, parades, art festivals, free concerts in the park? We enjoy doing those activities in Louisville (I love the local vibe/food scene in Louisville, didn't get the vibe in Dayton). We were impressed by the hills and friendly people. I could be happy living in Oakwood! Downtown Dayton was ok, saw they have a waterfront park, nice baseball stadium and area for going on...which is all we need at this point of our lives, having a 5 year old. I'm trying to get a realistic picture of the cost of homes...saw homes $500k+, and homes below $200k. Looking for a middle range like $250k to up to low 300's.

We went to Mason as well....my husband didn't care for it. Very new, massive buildings for community center, public schools, just didn't have the charm.

Columbus- downtown is so clean!! Also you can tell they put a lot of $$$ into new development. Seems to be on the rise, and liked that the urban neighborhoods are apart of the city instead of sprawled out into suburbs like Louisville. Really liked Short North, German Village and Victoria Village- but sounds like we would need to do private, Upper Arlington was great-but looks pricey, Grandview-more walkable than Arlington but looks like small houses. Dublin-nice upper scale suburb with cute downtown. I felt that Columbus has a lot going on as far as activities and size of downtown/urban vibe compared to Dayton. Looks like taxes will be higher and housing compared to what we're use to...won't get much.

[SWOH]

Glad to hear that you had a chance to visit and liked Oakwood!

For landscape architecture, there's a market for it in the area but it's not big. A few "big" players (Marty Grunder, etc.) dominate the market, and have for many years. There seems to be a degree of stability there, since it's not hard for a Dayton contractor to win a Cincy job and vice versa. I assume there are more landscape architects in Cincinnati though - somebody has to keep up those Indian Hill estates and I doubt it's done by their owners haha.

For restaurants, there are a number of them at the bottom of the hill along Brown St (Dayton city limits, but not downtown), as well as to the south along Dorothy Ln. A lot of chain fast casual spots on the Brown St. corridor (keep in mind this is where the UD crowd frequents too), more newer independents towards South Park and the OD, and some good, decades old independents are scattered throughout Kettering along Dorothy or near it like Mama DiSalvo's.

Dayton has a good amount of community events, it's just harder to find where they are. The Fraze Pavilion in Kettering (easy to bike there) has some free concerts, I believe. Lots of parades downtown, and I'm sure Oakwood/Kettering do a lot too. Art festivals happen downtown for the most part, but Kettering has a nice arts center by Fraze Pavilion that hosts some events. I'll post some good resources in a few min.



Columbus is really nice too, downtown and the neighborhoods are great. I'm a huge fan of German Village in particular, love the walkability and character there. Grandview wouldn't be a bad option at $300k, but you would get a smaller house. The metro itself is 2x the size of Dayton so there will be more going on. Not sure about taxes.


Good luck!

[SWOH]

And those resources....

https://www.facebook.com/TheOldYellowCab
https://www.facebook.com/HistoricSouthPark/?fref=ts
Downtown Dayton Partnership
The Official Site of Fraze Pavilion | Home of "Summer's Best Music"
(Dave Hall Plaza downtown by the Convention Center/Crowne Plaza has a lot of free concerts)
Featured Events | Things to do in Dayton
K12 & TEJAS Gallery :: Fueling a Creative Revolution - Welcome (great place for artistically minded kids)


If there is anything else you would like specifics on, please let me know. Otherwise, sorry about the delay.

[woxyroxme]

Originally Posted by kp8888

We went to Mason as well....my husband didn't care for it. just didn't have the charm.

BBBUT..It's Cincinnati's most publicized, envied and sought after satellite city.

As a rule of thumb, the older the area the higher the walkability, the newer areas are way more car centric and may not even have sidewalks.

Dayton used to be a lot more fun, I used to go to a lot of places that are gone now, I was into the rave party scene in the 90s but a lot of those places are gone, but also a lot of what was shut down resembled "lively Shively"

[motorman]

Originally Posted by woxyroxme

...It's Cincinnati's most publicized, envied and sought after satellite city.

If you're going to use my exact words in your post, you must distinguish them as mine. This can be done either with quotation marks and a name citation or by partitioning/boxing that portion of the post containing the quote.