Is Columbus now the only anchor city in Ohio? (Cleveland: ski resorts, sales)

[the_pines]

I was born and raised in and Dayton Ohio and Tampa Florida off and on. I was in Ohio for a month last year. The Dayton area to be specific. It does not seem anything like it was in the 80's and 90's. My wife refuses to move to Ohio but I still entertain the thought sometimes. Although I do not like the dreary cloudy weather and bitter cold at times, I have to work in the brutal heat here in Florida during the summers.

It's obvious Dayton has lost a lot of appeal over the last decade and more. I don't see things turning around much since entire cities and neighborhoods are crime ridden and have terrible schools. Family's cant take the risk of moving in to a bad area and fixing up a home if there is a lot of crime and the schools are bad. I have witnessed in my own lifetime the fall of Dayton basically. I don't have hope for it to come back and I have gave up on it. Outsourcing just obliterated large swaths of Ohio.

Anyway I know Cleveland is in similar shape, and I wouldn't live in Toledo. That leaves Cincinnati and Columbus. I have been to Cincinnati many times. However there are still large sections of Cincinnati with very high crime and bad schools, its just that Cincinnati is managing to overcome these problems better. Although VERY slowly.

That leaves Columbus. Being used to Tampa which is a pretty big and vibrant, with positive growth construction jobs(although not many) what would Columbus be like if we moved there?

[unusualfire]

Anchor city? If you mean capital sure. If you mean keeping Ohio afloat no. Both Cleveland and Cincinnati have more companies. Those cities are not Detroit.

[CinciFan]

Is Columbus now the only anchor city in Ohio?

Heck no!!!

Cincinnati and Cleveland are both rebounding nicely. Both have billions of dollars in new development underway and both are still huge business and cultural hubs. To write both of them off would be insane.

As far as crime is concerned, I know Cincy is really improving in this area: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnat...incinnati.html. Can't speak for Cleveland though.

FWIW, I live in Columbus now, but much prefer Cincinnati. I'll most likely be moving back within the year. Just my opinion.

[motorman]

The OP's questions about Columbus (expressed in his last sentence) might be best answered on the Columbus sub-forum. Meanwhile, this person needs to realize that the only thing Columbus "anchors" is an iron grip on state government and collegian football; although it's a city on the move, it's only Ohio's third-largest metro (behind both Cincinnati and Cleveland) and it shares similar problems as these two larger metros, only in different disguises. At present, Ohio may be considered to have no anchor city, but three dynamic "3-C" cities--all competing with each other for bragging rights to being Number One.

[TomJones123]

Ya, visit Columbus' south side or North Linden and get back to me on large sections of crime and bad schools.

[WRosado]

Originally Posted by the_pines

I was born and raised in and Dayton Ohio and Tampa Florida off and on. I was in Ohio for a month last year. The Dayton area to be specific. It does not seem anything like it was in the 80's and 90's. My wife refuses to move to Ohio but I still entertain the thought sometimes. Although I do not like the dreary cloudy weather and bitter cold at times, I have to work in the brutal heat here in Florida during the summers.

It's obvious Dayton has lost a lot of appeal over the last decade and more. I don't see things turning around much since entire cities and neighborhoods are crime ridden and have terrible schools. Family's cant take the risk of moving in to a bad area and fixing up a home if there is a lot of crime and the schools are bad. I have witnessed in my own lifetime the fall of Dayton basically. I don't have hope for it to come back and I have gave up on it. Outsourcing just obliterated large swaths of Ohio.

Anyway I know Cleveland is in similar shape, and I wouldn't live in Toledo. That leaves Cincinnati and Columbus. I have been to Cincinnati many times. However there are still large sections of Cincinnati with very high crime and bad schools, its just that Cincinnati is managing to overcome these problems better. Although VERY slowly.

That leaves Columbus. Being used to Tampa which is a pretty big and vibrant, with positive growth construction jobs(although not many) what would Columbus be like if we moved there?

After my venture at UCF, I had contemplated transferring to USF; I would never call Tampa "big and vibrant", never. Cleveland and Cincinnati are both "anchor" cities for their collective parts of the state. Ohio is a lot like Florida in that it has regions of the state that almost act as different states to themselves. I just see a lot more vibrancy in the city neighborhoods here in Ohio versus what I found in Florida. Only thing I liked about Tampa was Ybor City. Everything around the Temple Terrace (suburb I was looking at to move to) and Tampa lines seemed to connect, there was no separating the two.

I do not see how Cincinnati and Cleveland are doing bad. I, like so many other young collegiates, left Florida because the job market is one of the worst in the country. Everything about Florida was sprawly, fake, and not what I wanted. I had to drive my car everywhere, and walk across 10 lanes of traffic just to cross the street. Florida is not pedestrian friendly at all. I remember reading several articles about how Florida's cities ranked dead last in pedestrian friendliness. Meanwhile, Cleveland ranked in the top 5 with Boston. Everyday I can walk to class, the grocery store, restaurants, retail, etc. I never could do that in Florida. Not to mention each day I walk under a rail station. That thought would have never crossed my mind in Central Florida unless I walked under the monorail at Disney

I actually find Dayton to be more diverse than Orlando. Dayton's economy is actually doing pretty good once you start looking into the actual facts. I follow stats very closely, not only for school but because it peaks my interests. Dayton actually has an unemployment rate that metro areas in Florida don't see outside of Gainesville which is a college town. Dayton also has a wide range of industries from healthcare to being a high tech aviation hub. Their international airport has watched its passenger rates rapidly climb over the years a lot because of CVG, and is a very impressive airport. There are some very nice suburbs of Dayton as well. I believe Dayton, Montgomery County, AND the Dayton Metro area all have shown signs of growth in recent census stats... of course these are just estimates. In Orlando, so much of the economy was based around Disney World. I worked sales for hotels between Daytona and Orlando on I-4 (I won't even get into how big of a mess I-4 is) and can't begin to explain the majority of the reason we saw tourists was because of Disney... it was sad.

Just for a little perspective:

Ohio is 7th in the nation in population, Florida is 4th. Ohio is home to 29 fortune 500 companies, Florida 16. Ohio ranks 5th for fortune 500 based companies. It is pretty evenly spaced out as far as which city has headquarters... Cincinnati has 6... Cleveland has 5. Tampa/St. Pete is home to 3. Cleveland/Akron is home to 10. Not to mention Ohio is a healthcare, banking, and insurance hub. Just rattling off Cleveland... it is home to the nation's largest law firm and has a federal reserve downtown. The economy has a lot more to offer in Ohio than Florida. My car insurance dropped by half since moving to Ohio, I don't have to deal with the heat (own a dark car with leather which was always a good time from May-November to get in) and have things much closer than I did in Florida. I certainly had a grass is greener mentality with Florida, but it turned out to be everything I didn't want in a state. The economy is horrible (there are no jobs outside of construction or working in tourism) and life isn't about going to the beach everyday. Like I stated earlier, Florida is like several states in one. You have the "hillbilly riviera" up in the Panhandle, North Florida, Central Florida, the west coast, and South Florida. I did not find any of them to be a big interest of mine outside of West Palm where I also lived for a while (Jupiter and Stuart). At least Martin County had proper planning. I loved how far the FL Turnpike went west of Stuart to control the growth. It's sad, I still have my sun pass on my windshield next to my EZ Pass (Ohio/PA/NJ/NY turnpike).

Overall, I miss certain aspects of Florida... Mostly Publix. Florida is a great place to vacation in, but outside of that, I do not want to move back, ever. Ohio has a diverse economy, cities that actually have defining characteristics about themselves, and I like the change of seasons. I have a national park not far from my house with huge waterfalls, cliffs with awesome views, and ski resorts. All-in-all, I am very happy I left Florida.

[TomJones123]

Boom!

[jbcmh81]

This should go over well.

The premise is wrong. The state benefits from the productivity of all its metros, not just one, and they're all valuable and have their own respective strengths. But yeah, this thread is going to go nowhere positive. 3-2-1 until there are dozens of claims about how Columbus is sucking power and money from everywhere else in a vast conspiracy of state and local government set to destroy the rest of the state.

[Cleveland_Collector]

Cleveland in similar state as Dayton? Tampa is "vibrant?" Surely you jest.

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by Cleveland_Collector

Cleveland in similar state as Dayton?

The only thing Cleveland has in similarity to Dayton is manufacturing and being situated in Ohio. Otherwise, they have never been similar.