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Most of the WPAFB impact is in Beavercreek/Greene County rather than Dayton itself, though there is supporting business there.
GM/Delphi and NCR used to carry the load over here.
The University of Dayton and the Tech Town office park downtown are tied heavily to Wright-Patterson. The University of Dayton Research Institute, headquarted in the old NCR headquarters on South Patterson Blvd is a major employer in it's own right, and seems to be focused primarily on Air Force related projects. General Electric just built a $51 million state of the art laboratory at the corner of Stewart and Patterson that is dedicated to the development of electric power systems for aircraft. I believe that lab is also very heavily involved in Air Force work. So, while the impact of the base is heavily focused on the areas you described, one can't lose sight of the fact that the base is having a significant impact on the core of the city as well.
Abolish local income taxes and school-district taxes. Raise the state-wide income tax to compensate.
Are you proposing replacing the revenue from the local tax with a tax for non-residents of those local areas?
You stated that you live in Greene Co partially for the purpose of avoiding local taxes. Are you OK with paying taxes for the benefit of the city of Dayton or Toledo or whatever?
That sounds like a good way to just chase people out of the state as a whole, unless I'm missing something.
Local taxes were originally conceived as a way to get away with taxation without representation by taxing city commuters who couldn't vote for stuff - a money grab. Later, other localities wanted to get in on the gravy train. All this has just contributed to either urban sprawl as people kept moving somewhere where there was no local tax or just to leave Ohio behind.
This local income tax can't be that significant since by-and-large, the huge base of commuters with good jobs in the city is gone. What is the city spending the money on now? The city has been gutted - population-wise. The "need" ( and I use the term loosely ) for the money can't be anywhere near what it was when there was 100,000 more people living there.
The citizens have had to learn how to live with jobs that pay less than half what they were making 20 years ago. The government can figure out how to do that now.
WPAFB is, to my knowledge, the principal source of professional employment in the region. We don't have a substantial financial/insurance/IT sector, outside of enterprises serving WPAFB and its community.
Ultimately it is the availability of well-paying jobs that makes or breaks a city. A community that's a satellite of a major city can exist as cultural or recreational destination, without necessarily having much by way of local employment. But even a "secondary" city is ultimately a city, not a suburb. Dayton can't thrive as a bedroom-community for Cincinnati. Toledo can't thrive as a bedroom-community for Detroit. And so forth. Thus it is imperative for each of these cities to solve its own respective jobs-crisis, in our modern world of de-industrialization. It's not enough to have vibrant public parks, bike-trails, theater and orchestra and ballet, museums, craft beer and the like. These things are all pleasant enough, and I welcome their advent. But they are not enough.
For Dayton to thrive, there needs to either be a massive buildup in WPAFB, or a Plan B... another massive employer moving to town. But because Dayton does have WPAFB, it's more stable than many comparable cities in the Midwest, in Ohio and beyond. It has a natural draw of white-collar professionals, who can afford the nicer houses, who patronize the restaurants, who buy stuff for their kids, who carry the tax-base. So it's not all doom-and-gloom. But neither do I see a compelling case for boosterism.
There have been some recent major success stories in Dayton on the blue collar job front...Fuyao (2,000 jobs, will be world's largest auto glass plant), Proctor & Gamble distribution center (up to 1800 jobs), Caterpillar (500+), Heidelberg (300+). There have been two $100 million dollar+ new plants constructed in Dayton's northern suburbs in the past two years...Abbott Laboratories (production plant for Ensure) and a Meijer dairy plant both in Tipp City, and a $500 million dollar plus natural gas power plant just broke ground in Middletown, where SunCoke also recently hired several hundred for their new plant. The Navistar truck plant in Springfield just won a contract to manufacture medium duty trucks and will be hiring over three hundred workers. Honda has been on a real tear of late and it and it's suppliers...distributed throughout the area, have added several thousand jobs in recent years (not all in the Miami Valley, but many are, and those that aren't aren't far away. Honda is one of Clark County's largest employers even though it has no facilities there , and Honda has several facilities across the northern Miami Valley.
On the white collar front CareSource has created over 2,200 jobs downtown and Speedway just added several hundred new jobs to its corporate headquarters split between Enon and Springfield. Assurant, an insurance company, has created over 2,000 new white collar jobs in Springfield over the last 10-15 years, and is now that city's largest private employer. The University of Dayton has also been on a huge growth spurt. In addition, the new General Electric laboratory is conducting state of the art research and employs over a hundred with room yet to grow,and Emerson is getting ready to open one of the world's .most advanced HVAC labs this spring.
So, while we aren't exactly experiencing Sunbelt cityesque growth rates, we are making moves toward diversifying our economy and tax base, but with an air base directly employing 27,000 and indirectly employing thousands more...that is always going to be the nine hundred pound gorilla. That will only be a constraint if it precludes other industries from coming in or if it causes local leaders to become complacent in luring other industries. It is up to us to find ways to leverage the benefits of Wright-Patt..larger tax base, etc (even though the base itself is tax exempt it indirectly creates a much larger local tax base) to make ourselves attractive to other industries.
Last edited by robertbrianbush; 01-19-2016 at 05:05 PM..
Are you proposing replacing the revenue from the local tax with a tax for non-residents of those local areas?
You stated that you live in Greene Co partially for the purpose of avoiding local taxes. Are you OK with paying taxes for the benefit of the city of Dayton or Toledo or whatever?
That would be "yes", and "yes". I'm OK with with paying a state-wide uniform tax, regardless of whether one lives in Oakwood or Drexel or Sugarcreek Township. Then let the state - NOT the counties/cities - decide how the tax-revenue is allocated. What's hurting Ohio is the bewildering patchwork of school districts, taxation-districts, zoning-districts and so forth.
As a single middle-aged man without children, I'm perfectly OK with living in a sketchy inner-city neighborhood, or a rundown inner-suburb... from a lifestyle point of view. What prevents me from doing so, is the taxes. If the taxes were identical in the City of Dayton, in Washington Township and elsewhere, I'd be living in the city.
There have been some recent major success stories in Dayton on the blue collar job front...Fuyao (2,000 jobs, will be world's largest auto glass plant), Proctor & Gamble distribution center (up to 1800 jobs), Caterpillar (500+), Heidelberg (300+). There have been two $100 million dollar+ new plants constructed in Dayton's northern suburbs in the past two years...Abbott Laboratories (production plant for Ensure) and a Meijer dairy plant both in Tipp City, and a $500 million dollar plus natural gas power plant just broke ground in Middletown, where SunCoke also recently hired several hundred for their new plant. The Navistar truck plant in Springfield just won a contract to manufacture medium duty trucks and will be hiring over three hundred workers. Honda has been on a real tear of late and it and it's suppliers...distributed throughout the area, have added several thousand jobs in recent years (not all in the Miami Valley, but many are, and those that aren't aren't far away. Honda is one of Clark County's largest employers even though it has no facilities there , and Honda has several facilities across the northern Miami Valley.
On the white collar front CareSource has created over 2,200 jobs downtown and Speedway just added several hundred new jobs to its corporate headquarters split between Enon and Springfield. Assurant, an insurance company, has created over 2,000 new white collar jobs in Springfield over the last 10-15 years, and is now that city's largest private employer. The University of Dayton has also been on a huge growth spurt. In addition, the new General Electric laboratory is conducting state of the art research and employs over a hundred with room yet to grow,and Emerson is getting ready to open one of the world's .most advanced HVAC labs this spring.
So, while we aren't exactly experiencing Sunbelt cityesque growth rates, we are making moves toward diversifying our economy and tax base, but with an air base directly employing 27,000 and indirectly employing thousands more...that is always going to be the nine hundred pound gorilla. That will only be a constraint if it precludes other industries from coming in or if it causes local leaders to become complacent in luring other industries. It is up to us to find ways to leverage the benefits of Wright-Patt..larger tax base, etc (even though the base itself is tax exempt it indirectly creates a much larger local tax base) to make ourselves attractive to other industries.
Sounds like Dayton will have a bright future if this continues. I was born and raised here and I'm very optimistic about the city and the surrounding region. I hope that Dayton will make significant progress in 10 years or so. . .
That would be "yes", and "yes". I'm OK with with paying a state-wide uniform tax, regardless of whether one lives in Oakwood or Drexel or Sugarcreek Township. Then let the state - NOT the counties/cities - decide how the tax-revenue is allocated. What's hurting Ohio is the bewildering patchwork of school districts, taxation-districts, zoning-districts and so forth.
As a single middle-aged man without children, I'm perfectly OK with living in a sketchy inner-city neighborhood, or a rundown inner-suburb... from a lifestyle point of view. What prevents me from doing so, is the taxes. If the taxes were identical in the City of Dayton, in Washington Township and elsewhere, I'd be living in the city.
Valuations are way inflated here in Dayton. They say the house I live in is worth 30K. In reality, 30K could buy this and probably two or three more houses on the block.
IMO toledo has more to offer then dayton but maybe im a bit biases because im close to dayton and are not particularly fond of it. Economy wise its certainly getting better and jobs are more abundant. Walkability lacks, downtown is small and many buildings are empty still. Has a few good restaurants and shops. Getting around is very easy, traffic is minimal. Theres a lot of parks and outdoor space scattered around. Also, entertainment is ok, there are several museums and theaters - dinner and live shows. I enjoy youngstown, though very small, has a good art scene and festivals. Im sure it lacks in other areas though.
as jfre mentioned, housing is very cheap in the city limits. My husband and I have rental property(decided not to buy in dayton) but have seen houses sell for 5-10k each! They are not always rundown, many times in fairly good shape. Sounds like they over estimate value for tax purposes.
Ohio_peasant - consider piqua, you can buy houses for 20k or less a peice, very low taxes and to me isnt really sketchy. Little crime, just low income area. This is where all our rentals are.
Valuations are way inflated here in Dayton. They say the house I live in is worth 30K. In reality, 30K could buy this and probably two or three more houses on the block.
I won't gainsay the word of experienced people who researched the market and have built an intuitive feel for it. But my own intuition is confounded! How have a livable house, with a yard (though admittedly not a large one), be worth only $30K - or even less? If I went to Lowes and bought the raw material (2x4s, shingle, drywall, floor tiles, plumbing fixtures) and used 100% free labor to build such a house, on 100% free land - wouldn't my cost still be something like $50K?
In other words, we're in a situation where the price of a complete house - including its land - is lower than that of just the materials needed to build it. Isn't this a gross market-distortion?
Along similar lines, the "replacement cost" of my own house - on a sizable chunk of rural land - is about double the market-value if the house were to have been sold today. That at least is what the insurance company says. So this isn't limited to the inner-city, or to declining neighborhoods.
Ultimately, if such trends in house-prices are stable and pervasive, an economy can't thrive. 2nd tier city, 3rd tier, whatever... such low housing prices are indicative of a moribund economy,
I won't gainsay the word of experienced people who researched the market and have built an intuitive feel for it. But my own intuition is confounded! How have a livable house, with a yard (though admittedly not a large one), be worth only $30K - or even less? If I went to Lowes and bought the raw material (2x4s, shingle, drywall, floor tiles, plumbing fixtures) and used 100% free labor to build such a house, on 100% free land - wouldn't my cost still be something like $50K?
In other words, we're in a situation where the price of a complete house - including its land - is lower than that of just the materials needed to build it. Isn't this a gross market-distortion?
Along similar lines, the "replacement cost" of my own house - on a sizable chunk of rural land - is about double the market-value if the house were to have been sold today. That at least is what the insurance company says. So this isn't limited to the inner-city, or to declining neighborhoods.
Ultimately, if such trends in house-prices are stable and pervasive, an economy can't thrive. 2nd tier city, 3rd tier, whatever... such low housing prices are indicative of a moribund economy,
I was told by a cabinet maker that it would cost about $30k just to recreate the woodwork in my house, and that's about $10k more than I paid for it. While this is common (though usually not so extreme) in many of Ohio's mid-sized cities, it's not uncommon throughout much of the US, especially for historic homes. On the other hand, there are places in the US where the same theoretical $50k new house would sell for 10X that, or more!
If by "market distortion" you mean:
Quote:
An economic scenario that occurs when there is an intervention in a given market by a governing body.
I don't think so. There are many factors that push housing prices in Ohio's cities down, (perception of crime, poorly performing schools, even Ohio's general unwillingness to embrace urban living) but I don't think government intervention is one of them.
I also don't think the extreme low prices found in Ohio's urban cores are a great indicator of their respective metro area economies, because housing prices vary too much within each MSA. Yes, my house is probably now worth between $30-40k, but houses in some adjacent suburbs--literally 10 minutes down the road--still sell around that of the US average.
How have a livable house, with a yard (though admittedly not a large one), be worth only $30K - or even less?
The biggest problem in Dayton is the number of abandoned boarded up houses, if you had a decent house but the ones around it were owned by slumlords and are in bad shape that will drag down values in the area. The seller is just happy to get what they can, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. It's really a shame because I can remember when these were not bad areas years ago when the properties were owner occupied but once they fell into the hands of the slumlords it was the beginning of the end.
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