The Dayton "Attitude" problem (Oregon, Louisville: apartments, city hall, loft)

[Magicalmoe]

I agree every one of those cities have nice suburbs offering similar amenities. It would just be a matter of which core city you prefer. I'm not saying Michigan is better or Ohio State. Both are great schools in my opinion. Just be able appreciate things for what they are and don't be blinded by bias. I'd be happy if Dayton became a little like Ann Arbor. I'm expecting this won't sit well with some people.

[Natural510]

Originally Posted by Magicalmoe

I agree every one of those cities have nice suburbs offering similar amenities. It would just be a matter of which core city you prefer. I'm not saying Michigan is better or Ohio State. Both are great schools in my opinion. Just be able appreciate things for what they are and don't be blinded by bias. I'd be happy if Dayton became a little like Ann Arbor. I'm expecting this won't sit well with some people.

Dayton would kill to be like AA, but in the end I think it will retain its mini-Detroit status, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since the big D is bringing a lot of people back to its core (like little D). Not sure if I'd qualify them as "quirky" but there have been some unique businesses and hangouts which have cropped up in central Dayton over the past couple years, even if they mostly center around alcohol.

[dxdtdemon]

Why do people hate engineers so much? And what's wrong with sports bars? Just because people don't have your kind of culture or worldview doesn't mean that they aren't contributing to the economy.

[weatherphotographer]

Originally Posted by PerryMason614

I'm a lifelong OSU fan and three time grad. I have no problem admitting that Ann Arbor is a neat place.

The Germains seem to like both places. They have dealerships in both Ann Arbor and in Beavercreek.

I was trying to keep half the board off your hide, but suit yourself :P

[Magicalmoe]

Originally Posted by dxdtdemon

Why do people hate engineers so much? And what's wrong with sports bars? Just because people don't have your kind of culture or worldview doesn't mean that they aren't contributing to the economy.

I don't hate engineers. Its a really good job. But a room full of engineers isn't going to labeled as a hip place.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by Magicalmoe

I don't hate engineers. Its a really good job. But a room full of engineers isn't going to labeled as a hip place.

It helps when they marry us artistic types!

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Magicalmoe

I agree every one of those cities have nice suburbs offering similar amenities. It would just be a matter of which core city you prefer. ...

A standard trope (mostly true, I think) is that suburbs nationwide differ from each other mostly in their respective level of affluence. Take two suburbs of comparable affluence (Beavercreek, OH; Burke, VA; Altadena, CA), and they share an anodyne, generic similarity. Indeed, that monotony and blandness is - according to the critics of suburbia - what makes suburbs oppressive and undesirable.

I would opine, that what matters most is not the rural/suburban/urban divide, but the extent to which a given metro area attracts people of intellectual and cultural accomplishments. By this I don't mean fancy dressers or garage-bands or hipsters, but people fluent in multiple languages, authors, inventors and investors, eminent scholars.

Here's a metric that's dear to my heart: what percentage of the populace consists of serious authors in at least two languages? So for example, how many people have published poetry - if only on the internet - in say both English and French? In Ann Arbor, out of a population of 100,000, there might be 100 or so people who qualify. Maybe 50. In Dayton - possibly zero.

Originally Posted by dxdtdemon

Why do people hate engineers so much? And what's wrong with sports bars?

I snub any bar whose offerings are limited to Bud, Bud Lite, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors, and Coors Lite. Fortunately, the Dayton beer culture has been a spectacular success-story in recent years.

There's some truth to engineers being culturally unimaginative, with compartmentalized thinking: quantitatively adroit and perspicacious in their field, lost and obtuse in everything else. I'm an engineer, and I much bemoan the verbal-skills and general cultural awareness of my peers. But just as all generalizations are false (that's an engineering-joke), the falsehood in impugning engineers is that much the same fate greets all professionals (and really, pretty much everyone): get older, get married, have kids, work on the house and on shuttling said kids, and cultural life atrophies. What's peculiar to engineers is that they tend to marry younger and to have kids younger... much like blue-collar people, and less like other professionals.

[hensleya1]

For all the talk about how suburbs are bland, oppressive, or undesirable - why have something like 80% of all milennials, supposedly the generation that will turn the city around, decided to locate in the suburbs, along with a similarly outsized proportion of other generations?

There's a reason Ryan Homes throws up an entire subdivision in the same time frame Charlie Simms builds two townhomes downtown: the demand in the suburbs far outstrips that of the city. Now, the media and the culture lionizes the few who are going back to the city - but the truth couldn't further from the media narrative. The majority of people want safe streets, good schools, and good civic services - something the city of Dayton has failed abjectly at providing. Yes, we have a few people on this board who love living in the city. But the majority are leaving as quickly as the moving trucks will allow.

Only in today's America have we somehow sold a precipitous decline in the standard of living for young people as the "tiny house movement." The riverfront, the wharf, and the former superfund sites used to be the exclusive domain of the vagrants, now, it's where your 23 year old daughter lives.

[Magicalmoe]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

For all the talk about how suburbs are bland, oppressive, or undesirable - why have something like 80% of all milennials, supposedly the generation that will turn the city around, decided to locate in the suburbs, along with a similarly outsized proportion of other generations?

There's a reason Ryan Homes throws up an entire subdivision in the same time frame Charlie Simms builds two townhomes downtown: the demand in the suburbs far outstrips that of the city. Now, the media and the culture lionizes the few who are going back to the city - but the truth couldn't further from the media narrative. The majority of people want safe streets, good schools, and good civic services - something the city of Dayton has failed abjectly at providing. Yes, we have a few people on this board who love living in the city. But the majority are leaving as quickly as the moving trucks will allow.

Only in today's America have we somehow sold a precipitous decline in the standard of living for young people as the "tiny house movement." The riverfront, the wharf, and the former superfund sites used to be the exclusive domain of the vagrants, now, it's where your 23 year old daughter lives.

Good post. I think you hit the nail on the head. People want safe streets, good schools and good civic services. Our cities really cannot provide that. The millenials are the first generation where we find a general decline in both standard of living and career prospects. What's going to happen when this generation grows old. They are not reproducing. They are not making enough money to save for retirement and generate wealth.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by Magicalmoe

Good post. I think you hit the nail on the head. People want safe streets, good schools and good civic services. Our cities really cannot provide that. The millenials are the first generation where we find a general decline in both standard of living and career prospects. What's going to happen when this generation grows old. They are not reproducing. They are not making enough money to save for retirement and generate wealth.

If they aren't reproducing, then schools really don't matter, do they?