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Not everybody in Ohio is in love with it, so I am starting this post for those who want to leave, or have left to tell us why.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS
1) Current or former Ohio location:
- grew up in Lima, Ohio. went to college in Toledo. Left Ohio in the Fall of 2003.
2) Why do you want to leave or have left?:
- couldn't solidify a teaching job to save my life. very few interviews to begin with.
3) Where outside of Ohio and why:
- Greenville, SC. It's a decent sized city with a lot to offer but not horrendous like atlanta.
4) 2nd and 3rd Place Choices:
- wouldn't mind living in charleston, sc or charlotte.
5) What’s currently holding you back from moving if you haven't already left?:
6) Anything else you want to say?
- gotta go where opportunity presents itself. Yea it's nice to stay behind to be with family but eventually they will be gone as well sadly. gotta pick up and move on folks. Ohio is a dying state.
Dying state? Are you kidding me?...Ohio has the 7th largest Population out of 50 states.....get right...never dying....this State has some much to offer you just need to get out your small bubble....
- gotta go where opportunity presents itself. Yea it's nice to stay behind to be with family but eventually they will be gone as well sadly. gotta pick up and move on folks. Ohio is a dying state.
It is? Or is that just what a lot of people like to tell themselves? It's still growing in population, still growing economically. Manufacturing is making a return. The only thing that seems to be dying is the image that it's little more than a Rust Belt.
Let's face it, this thread is for fair-weather people who always see greener pastures somewhere else, no matter what the reality is.
I saw this link the other day and thought it was interesting. The map shows that most of the growth was in the South and West, but there was also strong growth in Central/Southern Ohio and other parts of the Midwest. Fast-forward to 2011 and growth has plummeted, but nowhere harder than in the previously booming areas of the Sun Belt. The recession made moving harder to do everywhere, but it also changed priorities. Most of the counties showing growth in 2011 were the urban centers. The Sun Belt growth was fueled almost entirely on the suburbs. The death or at least the massive slowdown of the suburbs is just not good news to have those areas keep booming.
Location: livin' the good life on America's favorite island
2,221 posts, read 4,389,805 times
Reputation: 1391
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbcmh81
It is? Or is that just what a lot of people like to tell themselves? It's still growing in population, still growing economically. Manufacturing is making a return. The only thing that seems to be dying is the image that it's little more than a Rust Belt.
Let's face it, this thread is for fair-weather people who always see greener pastures somewhere else, no matter what the reality is.
I saw this link the other day and thought it was interesting. The map shows that most of the growth was in the South and West, but there was also strong growth in Central/Southern Ohio and other parts of the Midwest. Fast-forward to 2011 and growth has plummeted, but nowhere harder than in the previously booming areas of the Sun Belt. The recession made moving harder to do everywhere, but it also changed priorities. Most of the counties showing growth in 2011 were the urban centers. The Sun Belt growth was fueled almost entirely on the suburbs. The death or at least the massive slowdown of the suburbs is just not good news to have those areas keep booming.
Growth has not plummeted in all areas.
There is no question that growth in South and West has slowed due to recession and difficulty of people selling their house but keep in mind that the US population growth is also at historic lows and there are still very desirable areas in country (i.e. Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin to name a few) that are still seeing good growth, maybe not at the levels of a few years ago. The Charlotte metro area was seeing annual growth 70k-80k prior to recession and was actually the fastest growing metro in the last decade. it's lowest growth year (2010) was 45k and 2012 population growth is projected at 60k+. I live in a Charlotte suburb that continues to have the highest growth in NC. The center city (Uptown) still continues to grow (15k current residents) and they project 100k by 2028.
Growth has not plummeted in all areas.
There is no question that growth in South and West has slowed due to recession and difficulty of people selling their house but keep in mind that the US population growth is also at historic lows and there are still very desirable areas in country (i.e. Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin to name a few) that are still seeing good growth, maybe not at the levels of a few years ago. The Charlotte metro area was seeing annual growth 70k-80k prior to recession and was actually the fastest growing metro in the last decade. it's lowest growth year (2010) was 45k and 2012 population growth is projected at 60k+. I live in a Charlotte suburb that continues to have the highest growth in NC. The center city (Uptown) still continues to grow (15k current residents) and they project 100k by 2028.
Sure, some areas are still growing, but the point is that most of the growth has shifted closer to urban centers, the opposite of where the majority of growth has been the last decade. In the Sun Belt, rates of growth absolutely did plummet from where they were, especially since they were so high to begin with, and no one can seriously deny that the majority of where that growth happened in the Sun Belt was in the fringe suburbs. In the 2010 Census, very few of the larger cities of those areas saw significant population gains. It was almost entirely suburban. Now that that boom is likely over for the foreseeable future, these cities are going to have to step up their infrastructure, which lags behind established, older cities people were moving away from. And throw in the fact that cost of living is no longer cheaper in the Sun Belt vs much of the North and economies are equal to if not better in the North now, the boom areas are going to have to fight significantly harder to sustain the growth they had previously.
Charlotte is a prime example of this. Even back in 2000, it had one of the worst % of sprawl in the nation, and presently has one of the absolute worst economies in the entire nation. Unemployment has been rising again. People keep moving there without jobs and without any sense of what the economy is all based on what happened there 5 years ago. It takes time for people to get the message that things have changed.
And since April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011, the Charlotte metro grew by less than 38,000, and these are just the estimates, which tend to take previous growth and just assume it's continuing. And yet the metro still couldn't find the people over those 15 months. So no, it wasn't 45K in 2010 when it wasn't that much in 15 months 2010-2011. And why would you make the assumption that growth will not only continue, but accelerate, when Charlotte's economy is just plain awful? Do you really think that people will continue to move there and stay there when there aren't any jobs and when cost of living continues to rise? All of Ohio's cities have lower unemployment. All of Ohio's cities have equal or lower cost of living. Reality on the ground has changed, and while it may take some time for people to realize it, the days of easy growth are over.
Why do so many people look at population growth as THE sole indicator for prosperity?
I know of so many people who, over the last 10-15 years, pulled up their tent stakes and moved away on a premise. That premise was that there was more opportunity for them in the south/southwest. Though not exclusively, the common denominator seemed to be that they were in some way attached to the construction field. One former friend left a good paying job (probably $65K/yr as a job superintendent) in 2005-ish to run off to Nevada where there was a promise (in his mind) of a 6-figure income. He moved there, got a job making about the same money, bought a house at an inflated price, and then the economy crashed. He lost his job, went underwater on the house when the value crashed, finally was foreclosed on, and then got divorced. He's still out there, somewhere. And, he's apparently still convinced that he'll do better even though history has taught him otherwise (and quite cruelly).
The point is that these stories are a dime a dozen and they get more frequent when you're talking about lower-income people. They all flocked to the south for a promise that couldn't be kept. Many of them are still there and most of them are struggling. So, while the population may have increased, any prosperity had long since leveled off for most. Essentially, what we've seen is a mass-exodus of people from the north to the south who didn't have the skills required to make it in our changing economy. Now, they don't have the skills to make it down there either and they have also become the south's problem.
I don't mean this as a sweeping generalization. Rather, it indicates an overall trend over the past 20-30 years. The cities up North that had their boom in the 30s, 40s, and 50s have spent the last 40 years learning how to deal with the decline. I'm afraid that many areas in the south are where we were in the early 70's. The people looking for a better life haven't gotten the memo, but they're still moving in. Only this time, the housing crash has made it easier for them to do it.
Location: livin' the good life on America's favorite island
2,221 posts, read 4,389,805 times
Reputation: 1391
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbcmh81
Sure, some areas are still growing, but the point is that most of the growth has shifted closer to urban centers, the opposite of where the majority of growth has been the last decade. In the Sun Belt, rates of growth absolutely did plummet from where they were, especially since they were so high to begin with, and no one can seriously deny that the majority of where that growth happened in the Sun Belt was in the fringe suburbs. In the 2010 Census, very few of the larger cities of those areas saw significant population gains. It was almost entirely suburban. Now that that boom is likely over for the foreseeable future, these cities are going to have to step up their infrastructure, which lags behind established, older cities people were moving away from. And throw in the fact that cost of living is no longer cheaper in the Sun Belt vs much of the North and economies are equal to if not better in the North now, the boom areas are going to have to fight significantly harder to sustain the growth they had previously.
Charlotte is a prime example of this. Even back in 2000, it had one of the worst % of sprawl in the nation, and presently has one of the absolute worst economies in the entire nation. Unemployment has been rising again. People keep moving there without jobs and without any sense of what the economy is all based on what happened there 5 years ago. It takes time for people to get the message that things have changed.
And since April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011, the Charlotte metro grew by less than 38,000, and these are just the estimates, which tend to take previous growth and just assume it's continuing. And yet the metro still couldn't find the people over those 15 months. So no, it wasn't 45K in 2010 when it wasn't that much in 15 months 2010-2011. And why would you make the assumption that growth will not only continue, but accelerate, when Charlotte's economy is just plain awful? Do you really think that people will continue to move there and stay there when there aren't any jobs and when cost of living continues to rise? All of Ohio's cities have lower unemployment. All of Ohio's cities have equal or lower cost of living. Reality on the ground has changed, and while it may take some time for people to realize it, the days of easy growth are over.
Not sure where you get your numbers but I have to chuckle when you say 'metro area grew by less than 38k'..this is a high number that most cities would never see but I have seen '10 to '11 growth figures as low as 45k and as high as 60k. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte...n-tops-18.html http://charlottechamber.com/clientup...nEstimates.pdf
Prior to recession have to admit many people moved here without job and I still think the population growth is one factor why employment numbers are skewed some just like I think some cities in north have drop in unemployment because there are people leaving so if you have same number of jobs and less people due to population loss your unemployment rate goes down. I've seen CLT population growth #s from '10-'11 anywhere from 45k-60k. Charlotte is a white collar town (vs. the lower paying blue collar). Anyone that thinks population growth is not a good thing for areas economy is dillusional just like population loss cannot be a good thing. It is well on its way diversifying from bank center to a major energy hub with major players like Duke Energy (largest US electric utility) and Siemens and 200 related companies (employ over 20k and growing). Although Banking is still king and takes it's lumps, it is a good paying industry, I know of no one that is without a job and most are earning significant six figures. Cost of living is comparable to many desirable areas in north, I moved from Chagrin and certainly saved money on COL. The DNC should be a good shot in arm for area as well.[/SIZE]
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