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Housing and Family-rearing come to mind. It is simply difficult on the coasts.
...the point was that I think the midwest will at least no longer go further downhill because there will be enough young-ish people migrating from the coasts (where they may have grown up) to the interior as cost-of-living migrants. Professionals will still migrate to major coastal cities as economic opportunits, but those who either don't make it or who simply yearn for a change of pace will head inland.
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And hey, the internet exists now so business and communication can happen instantly, and if we're needed physically we can always drive or fly. It's not like we're in Oregon Trail days where cross country settlement was a one-way-one-time prospect.
These were exactly my thoughts some 15 years ago. Between technological diffusion with the late-90s Y2K scramble, the 2001 terrorist catastrophe, the relentless climb of glamour-city real-estate prices, congestion and traffic, environmentalism and desire for clean air and quiet neighborhoods, I supposed that NYC would hemorrhage population, while the Appalachians and Ohio and Kentucky would fill in, helping local real-estate and returning to some semblance of national parity in housing prices. Perky and feisty techies would work from home, from their inexpensive cottages and small-town rowhouses, networking globally without having to leave their adopted villages.
The ensuing reality was exactly the reverse. Expensive places became more expensive, glamorous places more glamorous, and the moribund hinterlands caved even further into unremitting poverty. We speak much of economic inequality. Well, what about geographic inequality? Everybody wants to live where everybody else wants to live, leaving behind only those too impoverished or too ossified or too unimaginative or too frail to move. 9/11 hasn't changed my neighborhood because very few of my neighbors are too young to not remember Pearl Harbor. Though generally not poor, and in some cases not poor at all, they remain rooted where they're rooted. Meanwhile, nobody has moved into my neighborhood for decades.
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Originally Posted by goofy328
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There aren't a lot of jobs. But if you're uneducated they're aren't a lot of jobs anywhere...
I'd aver that the real question is whether persons who have obtained fine educations and who already enjoy excellent employment-prospects, will find similarly good prospects in Ohio, as they would in NYC and DC and SF and so forth. For persons whose salient problem isn't finding a job, but choosing between many lucrative and prestigious job-offers, will Ohio's offerings be competitive? Not to insult Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati, or even my own Dayton, but Ohio does not have a Chicago, let alone a London or a Hong Kong or a Berlin (villages so named, notwithstanding). Ohio may be a fine place to live for the great mass of middling persons forming the quotidian and unassuming backbone of society. But what is Ohio's business-case for attracting and retaining the true global elite?
Ohio doesn't need a Chicago. And to be fair, the appeal of Chicago is the financial sector. I'm not impressed with Chicago. And its not because I am from Akron. It is Chicago isn't New York, it isn't LA, it isn't Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington D.C., etc. It isn't the standard.
It may have been the standard at one time. Now, it is a larger working class city. The financial sector in cities like Chicago and Detroit are the primary differentiators from the rest of the Midwest, primarily Ohio. But we don't need a Chicago. Columbus is a large enough city, and it serves the state well. If you want a state where a single city is the nexus then Illinois is your state. But I don't need a state, nor desire one, where everyone lives in the same city because the rest of the state sucks.
It also should be noted that Columbus is a Democratic Party stronghold and the Barrack Obama twice carried Ohio. The Republicans have extensively gerrymandered Ohio, greatly increasing their legislative influence. E.g., Congressional districts in northern Ohio lump together Democratic precincts in Cleveland with those in both Toledo and Akron. It's an embarrassment for representative democracy.
Ohio has very conservative major newspapers, as demonstrated in the last gubernatorial election when the major newspapers launched what many considered a lynching of Democratic Party nominee Ed Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, an ex-FBI agent and an accomplished administrator of Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, had some personal flaws. Most notably, the Republicans illegally tapped into his motor vehicle records and released information that he hadn't had a driver's license for several years. However, the Columbus Dispatch and especially the Plain Dealer in Cleveland concocted and emphasized an unsubstantiated insinuation that Fitzgerald had engaged in a tryst with an Irish trade delegate. Meanwhile, the major newspapers largely ignored Kasich programs such as the leveraging of the Ohio Turnpike (a long-term noose over the northern Ohio economy), the diversion of billions of state liquor funds into the secretive Jobs Ohio, the failure of Kasich to deal with the ongoing massive pollution of Lake Erie, the gutting of state services and the local government fund. Kasich policies have raised sales taxes and indirectly local real estate taxes throughout Ohio.
Ohio newspapers tragically haven't yet even reported the Kasich environmental time bomb resulting from the injection of radioactive fracking waste under high pressure in much of the state. Much of the fracking waste water actually is shipped into Ohio from other states, such as PA and WV, that largely ban the injection wells. Kasich also signed a bill permitting fracking in Ohio state parks, largely never mentioned by the newspapers in the last governor's race.
Thank you for this post, WRNative. I can't give you any more rep but hope that more people come to realize what a disaster Kasich has been for the state.
Ohio doesn't need a Chicago. And to be fair, the appeal of Chicago is the financial sector. I'm not impressed with Chicago. And its not because I am from Akron. It is Chicago isn't New York, it isn't LA, it isn't Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington D.C., etc. It isn't the standard.
It may have been the standard at one time. Now, it is a larger working class city. The financial sector in cities like Chicago and Detroit are the primary differentiators from the rest of the Midwest, primarily Ohio. But we don't need a Chicago. Columbus is a large enough city, and it serves the state well. ...
Chicago is indeed rife with problems, and my Chicago acquaintances inform me of their strong desire to leave. But that notwithstanding, Chicago maintains its appeal as center for corporate headquarters, for business-activity and for maintaining the cultural tempo of the Midwest. Columbus is doing well, given the boundary-conditions placed upon it. But it does not have, and can not have, an O'Hare Airport, a Willis Tower, a Navy Pier - and that's just the most obvious (and somewhat garish) physical examples.
Nationally, Ohio's image is one of middling quality and acceptable decency, but nothing outstanding. This isn't cause for shame or gnawing feeling of inferiority. But it IS a disadvantage in attempting to attract transplants who have copious options and who - if relocating here - would carry the tax-base.
Indeed, given the exorbitantly high top marginal state income tax-rates in places like California, it is baffling why so many affluent singles (who don't have kids and don't worry about public-schools; and who get taxed especially heavily because of their filing-status) choose to stay in California or NYC or so forth.
As for the comments about Mr. Kasich... though politically and culturally I'm at substantial distance from him, I'm intensely grateful for what he's done about state income taxes and estate taxes.
Thank you for this post, WRNative. I can't give you any more rep but hope that more people come to realize what a disaster Kasich has been for the state.
Rebek, it's comforting that others understand the injurious nature of many of the policies that Kasich has inflicted on Ohio.
WRnative and ohio_peasant, I lived out of Ohio for six years (just across the river in WV) and have paid little attention to the tax situation; we will pay our first Ohio taxes since 2009 this year. I have, however, observed that the situation in Ohio education (K-12 and collegiate) has deteriorated and the environmental policy decisions have largely been bad. (The situation in WV is no better, so I am not bashing Ohio in particular--we moved back because we missed it.)
As for the comments about Mr. Kasich... though politically and culturally I'm at substantial distance from him, I'm intensely grateful for what he's done about state income taxes and estate taxes.
I understand the issue about inheritance taxes, but the Kasich income tax system is a joke. Business owners, often non-Ohio residents, will pay no income taxes on much of their income while their employees will be gouged by higher real estate and sales taxes.
Increased sales taxes and and appreciably higher real estate taxes also burden the less wealthy, even as services are slashed, appreciably in some poorer communities with poor real estate bases. East Cleveland can't even afford do buy fire equipment due to slashes in the the local government fund.
Park funding is deficient. Environmental regulations have been relaxed to the point of disaster. Infrastructure funding is deficient, and only is manageable due to heavy borrowing from the future to be paid for by future toll increases on the Ohio Turnpike, burdening only the northern Ohio economy and doing so disastrously, to the detriment of the entire state.
Kasich plays a political shell game that benefits only his supporters and the relatively wealthy who have seen their taxes slashed almost to nothing in some cases, and especially compared to the less wealthy in relation to the respective levels of income and wealth.
Many of the great beneficiaries of Kasich policies aren't even residents of Ohio.
The media has given Kasich a pass. E.g., I've never seen the Plain Dealer in Cleveland examine the disastrous economic consequences of the Republican Toll Road, the leveraged Ohio Turnpike and the leased Indiana Toll Road. How can this major story by ignored by the region's leading newspaper???
Chicago is indeed rife with problems, and my Chicago acquaintances inform me of their strong desire to leave. But that notwithstanding, Chicago maintains its appeal as center for corporate headquarters, for business-activity and for maintaining the cultural tempo of the Midwest. Columbus is doing well, given the boundary-conditions placed upon it. But it does not have, and can not have, an O'Hare Airport, a Willis Tower, a Navy Pier - and that's just the most obvious (and somewhat garish) physical examples.
Nationally, Ohio's image is one of middling quality and acceptable decency, but nothing outstanding. This isn't cause for shame or gnawing feeling of inferiority. But it IS a disadvantage in attempting to attract transplants who have copious options and who - if relocating here - would carry the tax-base.
Indeed, given the exorbitantly high top marginal state income tax-rates in places like California, it is baffling why so many affluent singles (who don't have kids and don't worry about public-schools; and who get taxed especially heavily because of their filing-status) choose to stay in California or NYC or so forth.
As for the comments about Mr. Kasich... though politically and culturally I'm at substantial distance from him, I'm intensely grateful for what he's done about state income taxes and estate taxes.
For me Chicago is just everything in one place. It feels like an agglomeration of Midwest urban culture and form, with good architecture.
The population is still on the rise.
And I would raise you those Southeastern states that continue to do well even though the progress is all over. States like North Carolina, Virginia, Florida. Sure Atlanta continues to be the face of Georgia but other cities like Savannah aren't that bad. And you mentioned California, which has a number of interesting cities, not just LA.
I would rather see each individual city in Ohio prosper than to see everything in Columbus, or for Columbus to grow on an epic scale and carry the vast majority of the population of the state, which is where we could be headed in another 50 years. Governing large entities like Chicago is very challenging, and can be troubling at times.
People want to see that happen here in Virginia, thinking they'll get another Chicago, LA, or NYC. I like the fact that there are a multitude of interesting cities in this region.
I'd aver that the real question is whether persons who have obtained fine educations and who already enjoy excellent employment-prospects, will find similarly good prospects in Ohio, as they would in NYC and DC and SF and so forth.
NYC, DC, and SF are extemely transient in that professionals cannot afford the high COL in those places and eventually move to lower COL areas. The jobs in NYC, DC, and SF do not pay much more, if any, than equivalent jobs in Ohio. I have a BIL living and working in Silicon Valley who can attest to that.
Professional jobs in Ohio pay. Where those jobs may not pay as much would be in the South, primarily Atlanta. One might do better in the three Cs; Columbus, Cincinnati or Columbus, but jobs pay a living wage regardless of location.
Ohio is preferable to a market like Virginia, where wages outside of the military and the federal government often require employees to work two jobs just to pay the rent and keep the lights on. Particularly in Hampton Roads.
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