Do You Have Faith That Toledo Can Turn Things Around? (Perrysburg: foreclosed, rental)

[davidafan]

We live in a suburb of Toledo. We used to live in Toledo, and we still have rental property there. Over the years, I have watched Toledo go from being a somewhat thriving city with fun things to do to being a ghost town with people, jobs, and businesses leaving every day. The local newspaper, "The Toledo Blade", used to have a multi-page section of help wanted ads every Sunday, now they are down to one page of job listings in the back of the automotive section. There are thousands of foreclosed homes in Toledo today, and a headline in the paper a few days ago said that the city is not ruling out having to lay off police officers and firefighters from their already severely understaffed departments to help plug an $8 million hole in LAST year's budget, not to even mention how short they are projected to be for this current year.

Okay, so those of you who live here or know the area well: Do you have confidence that Toledo can turn all of this around and become a thriving city to be proud of once again? What about all of the factories and other businesses that have pulled up stakes and left town altogether that at one time employed thousands and thousands of people? What about the fact that the Jeep Plant and the Chrysler Machining plant in Perrysburg Twp. employ thousands and are completely dependent upon Chrysler pulling themselves back to solvency, not to mention the GM Powertrain plant on Alexis Rd. that is depending on GM for its livelihood?

I confess to not being optomistic at all, because I don't know what companies are going to bring back jobs to replace the thousands and thousands that have left, not to mention that Toledo still has to focus on trying to keep the remaining companies from leaving too.

Any thoughts or opinions? We are on the verge of getting out of here before the roof completely caves in on this once great city.

[nickw252]

I think that if we can continue to develop in the green energy sector (solar) and remake the city and market it as a green area it will thrive again. Additionally, there is plenty of development going on downtown with loft condo's, the new arena, plenty of nightlife, the Mud Hens, etc. - I think she's got some life left in her.