What's Toledo's relationship with the other urban areas in the state?

[schmave]

Originally Posted by CincyExpert

My only experience in Toledo was my 4 years of undergrad at UT.

With regards to people I met that weren't from Toledo, here was how it stacked up for various local regions.

1) Cleveland metro - students from urban and suburban Cleveland schools had a HUGE presence at UT.

2) Rural Northern Ohio - lots of students from towns ranging from 500 people to small cities with 50,000 people. The general area these students came from was north of I-70 and west of I-71.

3) Akron-Canton metro - surprisingly met a lot of students from this area as well despite there being a fair number of similar universities (Akron, Kent State) nearby.

4) SE Michigan - very large/populated region so there was a decent presence of Michigan students but the presence felt smaller compared to students from more northern areas of Ohio. I'm not sure what type of incentive UT offers to prospective students from Michigan regarding financial aid and out-of-state tuition so less incentives likely led to the smaller presence.

5) Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus - Definitely a significant presence of students from these areas but also notably smaller than the northern Ohio presence.

I guess most of this should make sense considering more students would come from areas geographically closer to the university. I guess the only surprise is that I don't recall meeting a single student from SE Ohio while at Toledo.

This echoes my experience almost exactly (I was at UT from 1996-2000). Many of my fraternity brothers were from Cleveland, and most of my independent friends, both men and women, were from Toledo.
I'm a part of group No. 5, being a Columbus native.
Funny what you mentioned in the last sentence as I never gave that any thought, but it's largely true. Of anyone I met from east or south of Columbus ... I remember one person from Shadyside, in far eastern Ohio; another from Hebron, 30 miles east of Columbus; and another girl from Circleville, a half hour south of Columbus, who dated a frat brother of mine around the time I graduated.

[aca1]

It's an odd tidbit, but I would mention that while you can find a scattering of Skylines up the 71 line as far as Cleveland, there are none in the Toledo area.

I also noticed a large number of chili dog places in Toledo, which I would usually equate more with Detroit and Northern Indiana.

In my experience, a lot more Cincinnatians go to UT than schools in NE Ohio, but I don't know the actual statistics on it.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by aca1

It's an odd tidbit, but I would mention that while you can find a scattering of Skylines up the 71 line as far as Cleveland, there are none in the Toledo area.

I also noticed a large number of chili dog places in Toledo, which I would usually equate more with Detroit and Northern Indiana.

In my experience, a lot more Cincinnatians go to UT than schools in NE Ohio, but I don't know the actual statistics on it.

There is a Skyline Chili in Lima. That is the farthest one north on I-75.

[WRnative]

The Toledo Zoo is very popular with Detroit area residents.

Toledo swings way outside the size of the city in the quality of its cultural institutions, especially with respect to the Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo's emphasis on high culture is something that it also shares with Cleveland, in both cases likely a legacy of the cities' past prominence in the 20th century golden era of American industry.

Toledo and Cleveland share many political concerns. E.g., gerrymandering (believe it or not, Toledo and Cleveland currently share a heavily gerrymandered Congressional district that diminishes each city's representation in Congress) and Lake Erie pollution and water quality issues. All Ohio metros share common political concerns regarding cuts to state and local government funds, funding for mass transit, etc. Political values are very similar in Greater Toledo and Greater Cleveland.

Northern Ohioans and northern Hoosiers also should be concerned about Republican policies that have used escalating tolls on both the Ohio Turnpike and the Indiana Toll Road to subsidize directly or indirectly highway budgets elsewhere in Ohio and Indiana.

Significant tolls on these toll roads have placed a relative economic burden on areas served by these major transportation arteries, especially as the I-70 and I-65 corridor remains toll free.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by WRnative

.

Northern Ohioans and northern Hoosiers also should be concerned about Republican policies that have used escalating tolls on both the Ohio Turnpike and the Indiana Toll Road to subsidize directly or indirectly highway budgets elsewhere in Ohio and Indiana.

Nobody has been concerned about Democratic policies of diverting 20% of federal gas tax funds to subsidize mass transit.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by ram2

Nobody has been concerned about Democratic policies of diverting 20% of federal gas tax funds to subsidize mass transit.

Certainly many persons are concerned about the diversion of federal gas tax receipts to fund anything except roads, including funding of such things as bike trails let alone mass transit. Of course, funding mass transit, especially for commuter lines, reduces the need for peak capacity highway construction. Rural counties increasingly have mass transit systems, often point-to-point systems, but Ohio's rural counties have nothing to complain about regarding the allocation of state gasoline taxes, as described below.

Yet I want to emphasize that mass transit subsidies is NOT the same brazen indirect taxation of one region to benefit another region as takes places as result of the leveraging of the Ohio Turnpike and the leasing of the Indiana Toll Road. In Indiana, toll road fee increases actually financed a new freeway through southwest Indiana! For decades, federal funding in Ohio has been massively increased by toll-financed construction and maintenance on the Ohio Turnpike, and these funds have been spent across the state rather than offsetting funds raised by Ohio Turnpike tolls in order to reduce Turnpike tolls. Leveraging the Ohio Turnpike added grievous insult to exploitation of Ohio Turnpike revenues by the rest of Ohio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inters...g_construction

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/how-...69-finish-line

This article is from 2003, but little has changed in Ohio's allocation of gasoline tax revenues that greatly discriminates against urban areas. E.g., counties are allocated the same amount regardless of the county's size or population. Townships, unlike cities, get an additional allocation based on road mileage.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/s...s-and-suburbs/

IMO, Greater Cleveland and Greater Toledo politicians are dunces to tolerate their regions' subsidies of the rest of Ohio. This should be a cause for political warfare of the first order.