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I think what hccmac is trying to get at is, the massive majority of the "Dayton developments" aren't in the city of Dayton proper, but instead inside the greater Dayton metro area.
Thing is, we have the curious problem of how the suburbs wouldn't exist without Dayton in the first place - but on the other hand, the city of Dayton would destroy the suburbs if it had the opportunity too.
Why do I say "destroy the suburbs" if given the opportunity to? Because there's no illusion that the city and the proponents repeatedly advocate:
A bit of explanation of these two regionalism agencies, NOACA and MVRPC respectively: In 2008, Avon, a suburb of Cleveland wanted to build a new highway interchange to bring a bunch of jobs to town. However, the federal DOT had deferred the decisionmaking authority to NOACA on what projects get funded.
What happened was, NOACA which was dominated by Cleveland and representatives from Cuyahoga County refused to fund the project unless Avon agreed to share tax revenues with Cleveland. Emphasis added, because the money wasn't shared with the whole region - it was siphoned off to support the failing core city at the expense of the suburb.
A similar thing you can see with MVRPC - the second link shows the lion's share of proposed projects (from pages 9-20) are concentrated within a small portion of Montgomery County - specifically, the city of Dayton. Of course, it is the MVRPC that decides in a big way where the federal dollars go when it comes to road projects.... again, the city benefiting at the expense of the suburbs.
Nobody in this region has ever wanted anything to do with the city of Dayton - Riverside, Kettering, Huber Heights, Moraine, and the Trotwood/Madison Township merger were all created in response to the city of Dayton attempting to annex their land into the city. All to a fault, everyone decided that forming their own discrete entity was preferable to become part of the city of Dayton.
There's a reason we don't have a Van Buren Township, a Wayne Township, or a Mad River Township anymore. Every single time, Dayton began to annex land in the area and the residents responded by forming their own discrete entities in order to prevent annexation.
Should the proposed city-county merger go ahead, I expect many of the townships - particularly the ones where wealth is concentrated such as Miami and Washington Townships - to quickly form their own discrete cities so they aren't forced to become part of Dayton.
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It doesn't even have to be the city versus the suburbs - sometimes it's the suburbs fighting each other over a shrinking share of the pie.
Consider the local examples of Centerville versus Sugarcreek Township. For years, Centerville has watched as businesses locate on the Sugarcreek Township side of Wilmington Pike... putting all the tax revenue in the hands of the township. To this day, there's very few businesses on the Centerville side of the road... notably Miami Valley South... but it's owned by Premier Health Partners which is a nonprofit entity and thus exempt from many taxes. Centerville's solution was to annex land in Sugarcreek Township that became Costco - and then force Sugarcreek Township to provide fire and EMS service... but Sugarcreek Township gets nothing out of the deal.
Centerville also tried to reach their hands into Washington Township's pockets back in 2008. The merger was absolutely crushed at the ballot box - by a 10-1 margin in the township, although it did pass in the city (see Issue 48a).
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We are constantly told about the benefits of regionalism - how a unified government could more effectively represent on a national level, or how we could end duplication of services. But what basis do the majority of the residents who live in outlying areas actually have to prove the city's claims that regionalism is good? We have example after example about how regionalism just hurt the inner ring suburbs and benefited the city.
Louisville, KY has earned national acclaim for a successful city-county merger that doubled the city's population overnight over both local and regional opposition. But was the merger really successful? The accelerated growth of population in the outlying counties - especially of richer and whiter families - seems to say otherwise.
(Cred to JefferyT for the picture in a post from five years ago.)
All of the counties shaded in green saw double-digit growth since the 2000 Census, and they were overwhelmingly white. Oldham County - the county to the immediate northeast of Louisville and home of the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange - is now the richest county in the state and saw 30.6% growth between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.
Translation: Many of the residents didn't like the idea of merging the county and the city - so much so that they would vote with their feet. Without some sort of proven tangible benefits, how could any regionalism attempt succeed in Dayton?
If a hypothetical city-county merger were passed over the objections of suburban voters and no tangible benefits could be realized, you would just accelerate Montgomery County's decline. People would just move to Greene, Warren, or Miami Counties (as they currently are - all of these counties have seen double digit growth even as Montgomery County continues to lose population).
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All of this above assumes that everyone has fallen victim to the idea that regionalism is a zero-sum game. Everyone assumes that it has to be the suburbs benefiting at the expense of the city - or the city benefiting at the expense of the suburbs.
On the contrary, a different narrative would need to be painted - rather than simply taking the wealth from one area and sending it elsewhere, we need to instead talk about how more wealth can be generated. Rather than taxing the 1% into oblivion, let's instead work to raise the living standards of the other 99%.
Economic development across the board would reduce class envy... because the issue shouldn't be whether the 1% have too much. It should instead be about making sure the other 99% have enough.
So, regionalism advocates - can you articulate to the suburban skeptics why it's a good idea?
1. The root of this issue boils down to flight. Simple as that. Flight.
Rich people are always trying to run from poor people, and poor people are always trying to run from crime, and criminals are.... well... running from police.
Because we live in a "new" country, not a European one where development boundaries and hundreds, if not thousands, of years of development dictate the course of development, or a severely crowded one like China or Japan where availability of land dictates where people can live, or even a poor/unbalanced one like North Korea or Russia where simple poverty economics forces people to live in very specific places (although this does happen a great deal in the US), we sprawl.
And that makes it horrifically easy for people to run away from each other, live in their own bubbles, and pretend the world beyond what they think or perceive exists.
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I think the dynamic is changing significantly with the advances of gentrification and urbanism though.
2. Gentrification.... it's certainly happening, even in conservative backa$$ward Dayton Ohio (hey, at least we're more progressive than Springfield, which still thinks it's a great idea to demolish its entire downtown for brutalist suburban-style development). Gentrification makes the flight justification in the OP irrelevant, and ideally solves all the problems brought up previously. So why is it a swear word in most parts of the country and should people on both sides of the fence see it as such?
Not that I know all the answers here, but between:
- Watching 3CDC and its responses from a distance: What we do | 3CDC
- Questioning and trying to understand the inept motives of Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, which effectively worked against every neighborhood in the city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Streetcar
- Regularly reading CityLab and StreetsBlog (arguably two hubs for pro-gentrification urban idealism and thought): citylab.com
.... and a lot, lot more stories within the past few months tiptoe around gentrification, and its foil, suburban sprawl, without throwing them right into the limelight as the #1 issue in America (IMO, it should be, given it and its foil sprawl/white flight are at the root of BLM, Occupy Wall St., climate change/energy consumption, and the tech industry in San Francisco).
I can see that gentrification is pushing white and minority America both into a new age. Increasingly the far-flung suburbs are becoming less and less of an option. We are going to all have to learn how to live together, rich or poor, have or have not, just like they do in Europe and most of the rest of the world. Few in our generation living in the US have ever had to come to such terms.
White people are going to continue to demand to live in cities and partake in the amenities cities offer. In turn, city leaders have to task their police with finding ways to keep the rougher elements in line (minority people) to keep these new residents and their dollars flowing in. Racist and horrible as that sounds, that's the way many people (i.e. developers and city leaders) think.
The question is this one: Is a wealthier city with more job opportunities and a stronger, more brutal police force good or bad for the residents that already live there?
....that's a question I don't think anyone can answer with certainty yet.
But it is the reality of gentrification.
3. So how do we handle the idea of regionalism, especially in a nation of cities where residents are increasingly demanding gentrification and poorer people are being squeezed further and further outside the city core?
This is the real question that should be posed by this thread. The idea that there is a zero-sum game no matter what is non-sequitur to regionalism or even the current state, aside from deliberate poaching from one neighboring city to another.
It would be entirely foolish to think only Beavercreek won when The Greene was developed or only Dayton proper wins with Caresource, for instance. Everyone wins in the region when the quality of life improves, when problems are fixed, and when blight is abolished, whether that be the vacant Parisian/EB being demolished at Fairfield Commons, Phoenix Tube moving in to the Salem KMart space, or the Fronana guy converting a couple hundred square feet of space into a shop downtown.
Regionalism may work, and it could help keep Moraine poaching businesses from Kettering (and vice versa), or it may just push more people into Greene, Miami, and Warren Counties. What we do need to fully support is the regional efforts of MVRPC and the Dayton Development Coalition regardless. So long as corporate welfare exists, we are going to have to pour a lot of our taxpayer dollars into programs to ensure jobs stay here in the region and don't go elsewhere.
But we need to figure out a way to NOT give companies like Bradyware a stupid high amount of money to relocate from downtown, an area with excess space and a high need for office users, to Austin Landing, which could have remained a farm field and no one would have cared (or better yet, the space currently being filled by Bradyware could have been filled by a national or international company that would have created jobs that were entirely new to Ohio and Dayton in that space).
If regionalism can accomplish that, so be it. Or if a strong effort by a combined MVRPC + DDC + Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, etc. working together for all the communities can accomplish this goal then that should be what we strive to achieve.
I like the idea of regionalism in theory, especially if there were a way that we could ensure every community within a 25-mile radius of Courthouse Square was represented by the exact same city planning staff, same Chamber of Commerce, same Zoning Board, etc.
But what happens to the people in the regionalism zone?
******** We need leaders who can think together to ensure every community succeeds. And we need to create a system where this style of leadership is encouraged.
Simple as that.
But first, we have to figure out what success looks like.
What does it look like to the rich people with well heard voices? What does it look like to the poor people who don't have a voice?
What does it look like to the hipster in South Park AND the elderly woman who's on food stamps that lived in the shotgun prior to him buying and renovating it?
Then once we figure out what success looks like, we need to work like mad to achieve it.
Success and perfection are iterative.
We need to keep trying, keep working, and keep failing to get to the best possible solution fast.
Fail fast, fail often, and may the best possible solutions win.
So let's try regionalism.
It works in Indianapolis, the city which the current proposal uses as its model.
If it doesn't work, another referendum will quickly take care of it.
The world is shrinking and geography should reflect that. Less bureaucracy is a good thing, and a more consolidated government makes for a bigger player, economically speaking. That's true for states as well as cities & counties. All the regional in-fighting for the same slice of pie holds the area back. A merger may create a short-term loss, but for a long-term gain. Problem is most people around here can't see the forest from the trees, which is why they've long lost their innovative spirit.
Your issue is that suburban flight didn't cause "Black Lives Matter." It was the other way around - Black Lives Matter aggravates and increases suburban flight. The 1967 race riots in Detroit are an excellent example of this.
Total population in 1960: 1,672,144
White population in 1960: 1,182,970
Total population in 1980: 1,203,339
White population in 1980: 413,730
Total population in 2010: 713,777
White population in 2010: 75,758
In the meantime, Oakland County, to the immediate north of Detroit, doubled in population from 690,259 to 1,202,362.
You see the same thing in cities all across the country - Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and even Cincinnati in OTR on a smaller scale ten years ago. The riots served to set back the city's development by a decade, and many suburbanites still refuse to venture into the area because it's perceived as unsafe. That hurts the potential for investment in the city, which reduces the development opportunities, which creates a vicious cycle that few cities can escape.
I guarantee you that many of the business burned down in Ferguson courtesy of Black Lives Matter will never get rebuilt. Mark my words, by the time the 2020 Census is out, most of the white population will have evacuated.
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Many of the other forced attempts at increasing diversity - whether economic or racial - has just made the issue worse. People don't like being forced to do things, no matter how high-minded or righteous the government feels in doing so.
Forced busing just caused people to pull their children out of the public schools altogether... often times they moved outside the city, taking their tax dollars with them.
We make it a law that you can't deny housing based on income or race... so people just make economically restrictive zoning by mandating the houses be a big number of square feet.
Regionalism is a dirty word because people know the tax dollars will just get sucked out of the suburbs and back into the city. We have a long history of short-sighted leadership from cities all across the country - many times the cities simply tried their hardest to grab as many suburban tax dollars as possible. See again, the relationship between Cleveland and Avon via the NOACA. Until you can overcome that perception and track record of regionalism - and show a tangible benefit to everyone - then it'll continue to be nonstarter in the Dayton region.
I wouldn't be such a noisy opponent of regionalism if it weren't for Backa$$ward Dayton's leadership... specifically Nan, Joey Williams, Mims, and the rest of the circus that passes for the political leadership in our town.
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To answer question #3: Most people aren't demanding gentrification. In fact, most people to this day couldn't give a flying fig what happens inside the city limits.
If you don't believe me, look at the Census numbers: while core cities registered a gain of some 230,000 from 2000 to 2010 (reversing a long-standing trend of population loss), the suburbs registered a gain of 15 million in that same time frame.
To say that Charlie Simms builds more housing units than Drees or Ryan Homes just doesn't jive with the facts. And to suggest that it's indicative of a larger trend of mass gentrification at the expense of suburbs become deserted is pure fantasy.
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Is there renewed interest in living in the city? Yes.
A few people I know are interested in doing so.... but is it on the scale of the cities of the past? Do they intend on remaining there forever? The answer to both question is almost a uniform "no." There's only one guy in my immediate circle of friends who wants to stay in the city - and he's a Cleveland transplant who likes the grit and the random hole in the wall places.
Almost everyone else wants to get a house in the suburbs, student loans and underemployment notwithstanding. They all value good schools, a low crime rate, and not living on top of old Superfund sites.
The Millennials, statistically, have a stronger preference for living in a city and not needing or even wanting a car. So this is definitely the generation to turn around suburban sprawl. Cities that do not work at attracting them are missing a big opportunity. Gentrification seems to be looked at extremely negatively by everyone except those richer folks moving in and enjoying building the community and pushing out the established residents.
I'm not sure how much hope there is for Dayton. After all the richer/whiter part of the population went and just said screw downtown and are now living and shopping in a safer and more upscale pretend "downtown" at the Greene.
Although myself I've done the ultimate in white flight and moved out to the northwest, which is just shockingly white(93%) with the next biggest groups being Asian and Latino. Although it was for career, tax advantages, and of course the natural beauty.
I'm done with the suburbs myself. I either want to be in the city, or out completely at a beach house or a mountain cabin.
I don't know where this narrative keeps coming from that the younger generation has this mad desire to live in the city, not own a car, and live on top of an old Superfund site. In fact, many people I know are renting in undesirable neighborhoods or living at home not because they want to live in those areas - but because economic necessity prevents them from buying a house in a nicer neighborhood.
While there is some evidence that there is an increase in urban living, any percentage increase is coming off a really low number.
In fact, any claim of Millennials abandoning the suburbs wholesale in favor of urban living just isn't borne out by the numbers:
Overall, the poll found that older and younger Americans generally regard homeownership as a smart and achievable goal in equal numbers: 72 percent of older respondents said that they felt this way, and 69 percent of younger Americans responded similarly.
But the poll found bigger differences when it came to the two groups’ assessments of whether they’d ever be in a position to buy: Nearly one-in-five younger respondents felt that while homeownership is a smart decision, it’s not financially viable for them.
The poll also asked Americans about what community attributes made a place a good place to live. There was consensus across age groups that safety and good schools were most important.
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To tie this back to the point of the OP... the city cannot stake its recovery entirely on a small professional class of younger singles. They might contribute to the revitalization of one or two neighborhoods and they might bring much needed tax revenue to the city. But they cannot be counted on to remain inside the city limits once their salaries increase and they get serious about starting families.
Which means you will either 1) have a boom and bust in the inner core as the current crop of young professionals leave, or 2) at best, have a permanently transient class of young professionals that rotate in (as their careers begin) and out (as they start families.)
I don't know where this narrative keeps coming from that the younger generation has this mad desire to live in the city, not own a car, and live on top of an old Superfund site. In fact, many people I know are renting in undesirable neighborhoods or living at home not because they want to live in those areas - but because economic necessity prevents them from buying a house in a nicer neighborhood.
While there is some evidence that there is an increase in urban living, any percentage increase is coming off a really low number.
In fact, any claim of Millennials abandoning the suburbs wholesale in favor of urban living just isn't borne out by the numbers:
To tie this back to the point of the OP... the city cannot stake its recovery entirely on a small professional class of younger singles. They might contribute to the revitalization of one or two neighborhoods and they might bring much needed tax revenue to the city. But they cannot be counted on to remain inside the city limits once their salaries increase and they get serious about starting families.
Which means you will either 1) have a boom and bust in the inner core as the current crop of young professionals leave, or 2) at best, have a permanently transient class of young professionals that rotate in (as their careers begin) and out (as they start families.)
To be fair, the people you know are not the type to go for anything other than the suburbs. Your source discusses whether or not millennials would like to purchase a home at their particular juncture in life, not whether millennials are buying in the 'burbs. Millennials are buying in the city, we've got them in South Park, Fairview, Walnut Hills, Wright-Dunbar, Northern Five Oaks, McPherson, Oregon, St. Anne's, and Belmont. There's even rumbles of millennial gentrification in Burkhardt, Santa Clara and Huffman. That's more than 'one or two neighborhoods'. And I didn't even mention the pockets of development in the city center itself. What's really holding back those neighborhoods are the big buildings: old 8+ unit apartment buildings, old businesses, Santa Clara and so on because that takes a professional investor to rebuild or repurpose.
I wish I had the time to do a more thorough reply, but I can't really spare as much time now as would be needed.
So for the meantime, here's my quick response:
Look to the newest rends and building practices in retail, housing, office space, etc.
What's the trend?
Tighter, more dense developments. Many of which are pedestrian friendly.
If Austin Landing were built in 2004, the outcome would more than likely not have been a mixed use development.
Carriage Trails, Southwest Ohio's fastest growing subdivision, wouldn't have 30+ acres devoted solely to greenspace and wouldn't have reduced lot sizes from 70' wide in the initial phases to 50' now.
(keep in mind that the lots are about 100-120' long, so if I did my math right that's a 5000 sq. ft. lot... this "older" model in Carriage Trails has a lot size of 8000 sq. ft: 5031 Dayflower Dr, Tipp City, OH 45371 | Zillow
Suburbia has conformed to the build standards of the classic urban built environment without most people even batting an eye
And that makes it all the more viable and rational for people, who have adjusted to an urban lifestyle in suburbia, to come support and enjoy their city as it was meant to be.
The dynamic has changed in the rest of the US. Dayton is playing catch-up.
The key is to not run into the same issues these cities are facing in our future.
1. The root of this issue boils down to flight. Simple as that. Flight.
Rich people are always trying to run from poor people, and poor people are always trying to run from crime, and criminals are.... well... running from police.
No, it isn't as simple as that. I live a couple miles from Whitehall, one of the most modest blue-collar suburbs in Central Ohio. Whitehall is bounded by Columbus to the west and to the south. There is NO COMPARISON between the Whitehall parts and the Columbus parts contiguous to it. The Whitehall parts are cleaner, nicer, and have better curb appeal.
These are modest homes that look better just because they are in a smaller suburb and quite simply small is easier to manage than large.
Likewise when it comes to a city with its nice developments. Cities tend to take money from the nicer areas within the city and tend to spend that money on the inner city. Likewise when it comes to police calls - they can't get to you in suburban areas because they are off fighting some gang war in the hood. Sooner or later those nice areas look a little rough around the edges because not enough money was invested in those areas.
This has nothing to do with social justice, this is quite simply dollars and cents. And if I am paying a lot of money for taxes, I want the most I can get for paying those taxes and the biggest bang for the buck is in the suburbs.
EDIT: I forgot to mention snow removal. In Columbus, only the main arteries get plowed -- they rest they wait for it to melt. Cross the border into Grove City, Groveport, Whitehall or Reynoldsburg (all blue collar suburbs) and they hit the residential subdivisions along with the major arteries.
Small means a higher attention to detail and it's easier to manage! No more big citification!
If they want to share things, share the stuff that doesn't matter like water, sewer and whoever runs the timing of the traffic lights. LEAVE EVERYTHING ELSE ALONE!!
Last edited by PerryMason614; 10-23-2015 at 07:12 PM..
If they want to share things, share the stuff that doesn't matter like water, sewer and whoever runs the timing of the traffic lights. LEAVE EVERYTHING ELSE ALONE!!
Water matters in Dayton.
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