The Origins of the Urban Crisis (a Dayton version?)

Two books that are very useful in understanding the local predicament are “The Origins of the Urban Crisis” by TJ Sugrue and “When Work Disappears” by William J Wilson. Maybe, too, “The Truly Disadvantaged”, also by Wilson.

These books are about Detroit and Chicago but are relevant as the situations describe happened here too.

One can see statistical evidence it in the sidebar to the recent Columbus Dispatch article on Dayton. The article is a topic of discussion at Dayton OS, and Ellen Belcher is blogging on it at the DDN.

Here’s a take on Dayton, using some of the concepts and POV from “The Making of the Urban Crisis”, working with the Columbus Dispatch graphics, but also some other info sources.

First, this impressive graphic from the Dispatch sidebar, showing decline in employment and especially manufacturing employment (click on the images for an enlargement)


Then another look at how manufacturing employment declines, based on census numbers available at a HUD website, but using the 1949 number from the Dispatch graphic as a starting point.


One of Sugrue’s theses is that there was a decline in job opportunities as manufacturing automated and relocated, and that this was happening (in Detroit) as early as the 1950s, This “economic structural adjustment” had a direct impact on the economic fortunes and life chances of the black community. Then, picking up the theme (but using a different city), Wilson discusses the formation and solidification of a black urban underclass due to long term loss of work.

One can see this in Dayton, too, given the decline in people holding factory jobs even during the postwar boom, but then a drastic drop after 1970. So maybe deindustrialization was delayed here somewhat, compared to Detroit.

One can see that there is an increase in median income to 1970s (from the Dispatch chart)

...until 1970, when income stagnates and drops, which corresponds with the steep decline in manufacturing employment after 1970.

And also an increase in poverty after 1970...

It’s also interesting to see how education attainment improves, but median income declines and poverty increases at the same time...

...so, a more educated but worse-paid workforce.

Looking at employment by sector in Dayton, an overall decrease in employment...


...but taking away manufacturing, employment, in numbers, is pretty stable


…which seems to imply (since poverty increases and median income declines) that good paying jobs have went away, (or Daytonians don’t have access to them) . Increased unemployment may have also helped drive down wages, the function of what Karl Marx called “the reserve army of the unemployed”.

Now, lets see how this works geographically and racially, and how the black community was perhaps disproportionately impacted by these changes.

First, the black neighborhoods around 1970. Special note is made of Westwood, as this was, by 1970, a blue collar black neighborhood. (per “Westwood, Dayton, Ohio : an urban geographic study of racial transition” , by Paul Kendall)

Then poverty in 1970. As one can see, concentrated in black areas, but not all black tracts were poor, nor deeply poor. Westwood was not poor.
Then one see's how poverty spreads and deepens during the 20 years after 1970, particularly in the black community

…ending with Westwood moving from a black working class neighborhood to the beginnings of a poverty pocket.

I recognize that the black area of Dayton was growing during this time, so one does wonder if there was “black flight” from poorer neighborhoods. I suspect, though, that the loss of better paying jobs, particularly in manufacturing, led to diminishing life chances for black folk, helping create an urban underclass, and that this is a multi-generation process extending over decades.

It might be worth taking a closer look at the de-industrialization of Dayton, and at the changing color line, in future blog posts.