Human Services Levy Political Geography

The Dayton Daily News has a good article with this impressive little graphic on the Human Services Levy vote (impressive in that the vote is taken down to the precinct level, which is about as granular as it gets in political geography)


(click on the map for an enlargement)

The news analyses was fairly accurate, too, showing the strong votes coming from poorer parts of Dayton and the wealthy “west of Far Hills” corridor to the south of the city.

To elaborate on the geography, some additional observations:

1. Rural vs Urban/Suburban divide. Rural western Montgomery County voted against, while most suburban and urban precincts voted for. Opposition looks to be strong in German Township, and in parts of Butler Township around the airport. The more rural parts of Huber Heights, Clayton, and Miami Twp also voted no, but in the 40% and 50% range. Yet some rural villages voted "yes" (like New Lebanon).

2. Mall Area “for” vote. The area around the Dayton Mall/I-75, in Miamisburg and Miami Twp seems to be a suprisingly large suburban concentration voting for the levy.

3. Strong Suburban “no” votes in Riverside/Northridge. Seems the parts of Northridge/Harrison Twp along I-75 and the “Avondale” part of Riverside were pretty set against the levy. The North Dixie area toward Stop Eight Road also looks to be a strong "no" vote.

4. Suburban "no" votes in certain suburbs: Huber Heights, parts of Vandalia, and most of West Carollton voted no. "Yes" votes in Huber concentrated in older parts of Huber south of Fishburg Rd. "Yes" votes in Vandalia were in precincts south of US 40 and west ofI-75.

5. Strong "no" vote in military precincts. The military housing areas off of Airway in Riverside vote "no", (less that 40% supported). This is ironic as this was a property tax levy, and the military in these housing areas don’t pay property tax, so maybe more of an ideological vs pocketbook opposition?

I’d love to see more of this precinct level analyses from the DDN, as it really helps to understand the political geography of the area.

Gay Rights issue reopened in Dayton

The Dayton Daily News reports

It looks like Dayton is in for a rerun of the gay rights controversy of 8 years ago:

"Commissioner Dean Lovelance and former commissioners Idotha Bootsie Neal and Lloyd Lewis originally supported Wiseman's proposal, but withdrew support after lobbying by area ministers.

Now, Lovelace said discussion between black ministers and the gay community that should have taken place seven years ago never happened. "I'd like to have that before I vote on this," he said

The commission could vote on the ordinance Nov. 21.

"I'm really proud that we as a commission are taking this on. The call is out there for politicians to do the right thing even when it's a hard thing to do," Commissioner Matt Joseph said.

We’ll see.

Dean Lovelace is laying the rationale for his “no” vote, by saying discussions never happened between ministers and the gay community. One wonders what is there to discuss?

This is an issue, like abortion, where there is no compromise for Christians, as to tolerate or accept homosexuality is contrary to Scripture. So clergy are going to have to oppose this law.

Counting votes one wonders how Rhine McLin is going to vote. I’d say she’s the swing vote.

Just for grins, I ginned up this map of the gay rights local option for the larger cities (and their suburbs) surrounding Dayton.




Apparently these laws are more widespread than one would expect (Fort Wayne? Youngstown?). In some cases, where there is merged city-county government, coverage extends to suburban areas.

Dayton and Akron are the only large cities in Ohio where gay rights has failed or never been attempted.

Mountaineers are always free, but they are also fairly culturally conservative, as no large West Virginia city has gay rights coverage. The cultural conservatism of Appalachia mights play a role in the lack of support for gay rights in Dayton and Akron, as these cities have the largest urban Appalachian communities in the state.

Considering the Core Creative Class in Dayton

I did a little mini-atlas of a few of the “creative class” occupations identified in Richard Florida’s book. I didn’t use all of the occupations he uses, more the artistic, media, and technical professional ones in engineering, computers, and sciences (which are also fields that are growing here). My selection was influenced somewhat by CP Snow’s concept of the “two cultures”
Here’s a look at what I call the “core creative class”, people in the arts, applied art and design plus entertainers, musicians, and people in athletics. For a list of all the occupations covered by this group click here.

The maps give a % by census tract (% of people living in the tract who are core creatives) and a raw count, for the top 10 census tracts (I put in some neighborhood or location names so you can recognize them).


As one can see smaller tracts can have higher %s, even if the raw count of core creatives is small, and vice versa.

Next, media workers, including authors, tech writers, photographers, broadcasting, movies (including the various craft/trades associated with media, like cameramen and sound technicians).


Putting it all together.


One can see where this core creative class lives in Montgomery County. And it seems to be both in the city as well as out in some suburban areas one would not expect, like apartment complexes out near the Dayton Mall and fairly generic subdivision neighborhoods, as well as some neat inner suburbs like Southern Hills.

This shouldn’t be too surprising when one thinks of some local creative folks who live in suburbia. Robert Pollard is a good example of that (lives in Kettering). The band members from Dementia Precox (from Beavercreek) are another .

The sources for the numbers is the census, and this is for the work people do most of the time. Thus it doesn’t account for the “day job” aspect of doing creative work, where people who, say, play in a band might have day jobs to survive, though their personal focus is on music. Same with visual artists and authors.

on edit, here is a good article on the importance of Day Jobs (from Austin, Texas)

What is the connection between the Creative Class concept and bohemia? Bohemia is increasingly of interest to urban theory, both as a social milieu and a geographic expression.

Two Tales from Urban Bohemia
(apologies to the Dandy Warhols)

Neo Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City is about Chicago’s Wicker Park, and has a bit of an ideological axe to grind, though entertaining as a history/ethnographic study.

Selling the Lower East Side is about Loisaida/East Village in NYC, and is quite interesting as a history of multiple bohemias occupying the neighborhood—and sharing it with white ethnics and later Puerto Ricans--- through time. (check out the website at the link for a good chronology).

One of the lessons of these books is that urban bohemia pioneered by the core creative class of artists, writers, and musicians becomes attractive to other creatives and professionals with more remunerative occupations, hence the importance of milieu. People just like the vibe and energy of places that have a lot of core-creative folks, AKA “making the scene”.

Another example is what happened in northern England, where pop culture (and gay culture so some extent) became connected to urban regeneration.

A good local example of missing all these points is Mary McCarty’s recent opinion piece. Her point is that one should involve mainstream performing arts orgs and presenters, or (tongue in cheek) spend the money on them instead of a consultant.

I had referenced this study in an earlier post as a caution on the Creative Class theory. The study does, however, stress the importance of milieu, and says this:

Public spending on the arts, justified on the basis of increased regional competitiveness may very well be wasteful if directed to high visibility projects that do nothing to increase human-scale interaction…Any metropolitan region pursuing a creative economy strategy in earnest should engage local artists in devising the best ways to encourage the social and cultural interaction that engender creative milieus. The research community can contribute to this effort by empirically examining the evolution of creative milieus across all cities.

Note were it says “engage local artists”. This would be people like David Sparks, Bing Davis, the people who organize and perform at the Dayton Music Fest, Reggae Fest, Blues Fest, local indy music labels, The Circus, the people who organized the performance art thing at the Gym Club, The Front Street artists, the printmakers up off of Keowee in North Dayton, Mick Montgomery and some of the other local live music bar owners, and so forth

In other words, engage the more underground and bohemian side of the local cultural scene.

That's what needs to happen as part of the upcoming creative class study.

Corwin Street, Bywater & Algiers Point

Dayton has a few places that should be historic districts but are not. Three that I can think of are the Front Street factories, Paul Lawrence Dunbar (formerly Summit) Street, and Twin Towers.

I am particularly fond of Twin Towers (can we please rename this neigborhood "Xenia Avenue" or "Old Saint Marys"?) as it has such a variety of old Dayton houses (including perhaps the largest collection of antebellum and Civil War era houses outside of the Oregon and St Annes Hill.)

Xenia Avenue is a visually rich street with a fairly intact (but somewhat vacant) neighborhood shopping district, and one of only four surviving structures from Dayton's tobacco processing/cigar manufacturing era. The side streets off of Xenia have some fascinating old residential architecture.

I have been doing some research on this area, on and off, and just wanted to share this great streetscape as a bit of teaser for a future post (most likely at Urban Ohio) on Twin Towers.

Corwin Street is the oldest plat in Twin Towers. Platted in 1842 it predates much of St Annes Hill and even parts of the Oregon. Most of the houses are newer via ongoing building subsitution to increase density, though there are at least one or two that survive from the antebellum era.







This is probably the oldest house in Twin Towers. either 1840s or 50s. I suspect small workers' cottages such as this was the original houseform, but replaced via larger houses and doubles through time. This area became more accessible via the Green Line horsecar on Richard Street in the 1880s.



...closing with collages from New Orleans. These two neighborhoods, Algiers Point (across the Mississippi from the French Quarter) and Bywater (part of the 9th Ward) bear an uncanny resemblence to Corwin Street, Twin Towers, and a few other older East Dayton areas, due to the houses being mostly frame, close together, and held close to the street.

BTW, those links are worth a look, to see how New Orleans folks really appreciate their old neighborhood architecture, even smaller and more humble building types.

I think Twin Towers needs to be appreciated more, and hopefully I can help that along a small bit by posting more on it.

Progress on Saving the Arcade

Good news on the Arcade! This was on the cover of the Sunday Dayton Daily News:

A budding proposal to revive the Arcade complex downtown would convert the cloister of five buildings, and others in the neighborhood, into residences, a boutique hotel, offices and parking.

It would not be the Arcade of old with retail shops and restaurants, a concept that failed twice in downtown Dayton.

The key difference in this proposal that makes Preservation Dayton President Dave Bohardt believe it can happen is the man driving it.

"After all these years, the stars are finally starting to align," Bohardt said. "Bob Shiffler is key."

Shiffler and his wife, Nancy, redeveloped the Kuhn's building at Fourth and Main streets. The office complex, in an 1882-era building, in now fully leased. The Shifflers have now redirected their energy to the McCrory building, next to the Arcade.

(more here)

Also, a story about the changed focus of the fundraising being done by Friends to Save the Arcade.


Organizers of a grassroots effort to save downtown's historic Arcade say they're shifting focus from raising funds to pay delinquent property taxes on the complex to collecting pledges for critical repairs to the glass dome of the rotunda.

"I think the tax issues are minor, compared to making sure it doesn't fall down on itself," said Leon Bey, a leader in the Friends to Save the Arcade movement.

Bey, along with fellow organizers Maribeth Graham and Joanne Granzow, said they're considering the change after hearing the Arcade's tax debt may become the responsibility of future redevelopers.

(more here)

What I like about this proposal is that it gives up on the retail concept and focus on housing, hotel, and business use. The hotel concept has been used in two arcades in Cleveland, so there is a precedent for that.

I was wondering when Preservation Dayton was going to step in, aside from holding the fundraising account for the Friends to Save the Arcade.

Kudos to Leon Bey and the other FSA organziners for putting the Arcade back on the agenda, and to Bob Shiffler and Dave Bohardt for coming up with a plan.

A Few Words on Defense Spending

The purpose of this blog is to talk about Dayton and vicinity, so very rarely will it touch on national issues or politics. However, given the discussion in the Dayton Banana post, some brief remarks about defense spending, as this is one area of national public policy that has local economic implications.

Good sources (meaning they are not ideologically left or right) are two policy houses: Defense and the National Interest and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (formerly The Defense Budget Project). I use Defense and National Interest graphics below.

The discussion is about the so-called "Military Industrial Complex" To understand this term and the concern, read Eisenhower's farewell address here.
Looking at defense spending in the context of the national economy a common measure is defense spending as a % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Over time one sees this measure at around 6%-7% during the Cold War and steadily declining. This means that as the national economy grew after WWII defense spending became less and less signifigant.

During WWII defense spending was huge, pretty much driving the economy (perhaps a proof the theory of economic pump priming), then dropping after the war and rising again due to Korea and the start of the Cold War.

What's interesting here is the relatively high % during the 1950s, when Eisenhower was president. This was the context of Eisenhower's warning in the farewell address.


Another way to look at defense spending is to compare how much was being spend over time, and projections, in current year dollars (to smooth out inflation).

The following graph shows defense spending being pretty stable in the post WWII era, with fluctuations within a certain range. Interesting to see that high Korean War era spike, though.

One thing the above chart does not show is that defense spending as a share of the Federal discretionary budget dropped from around 70% in the Truman/Eisenhower era to 50% today. This is not of the total federal budget, as things like Social Security, Medicare, and Food Stamps are not considerd discretionary spending.

At 70% one can undestand Eisenhower's concern about the influence of the military industrial complex on the Federal budget process. Even at 50% this is half of the budget pie. One can speculate on why the drop from 70% to 50%, perhaps due to increased Federal involvment with urban policy and and environmental and social spending?


I marked up the above graph, showing some key periods. One thing to compare is the brief era between WWII and the start of the Cold War, and the post Cold War minimum.

At the end of the Cold War there was talk of a "Peace Dividend", where defense spending would drop below the Cold War minimum range.

This did not happen.

Spending dropped to the Cold War minimum and no further.

Somewhere within the difference between the post Cold War mimimum and the post WII demoblizatioon top is the cost of being the world's technologically dominant military superpower. And this difference is what contributes to the local economy as the defense activity here is not "fly and fight" but more on the R&D/weapon system aquistion.

Dementia Precox on Halloween: 24 Hour Party People

Going to this show caused me to realize that things are going on in Dayton all the time, at all sorts of venues:

Dementia Precox was nearly before my time in Dayton. I saw some of their last shows at CST; memorable enough to cause me to come back for this reunion.


More pix here.

"24 Hour Party People" or "Be Midwestern"?

I wonder if anyone is familiar with Manchester, UK? A city that is using pop culture as a urban regeneration and branding strategy. This is even being taught in one of their colleges..check out this syllabus from Manchester Metropolitan University:

The following four sections will each focus on a different city and era, analyzing the symbiosis between popular culture and urban change in 1960s London, The north and popular culture in the 1960s/70s, 1970s New York, and Manchester from the 1980s to the present day. The unit involves film screenings. The unit breaks down thus:

1. Defining The Popular, Defining The Urban
2. Austerity To Affluence: Post-War Cities And Rock And Roll
3. London 1960s: Swinging City
4. 1960s British Cinema
5. Northern Soul: The Regions In The 1960s And Early 1970s
6. New York 1970s/Mean Streets
7. Manchester 1980s: The Pop Culture City
8. Screening Manchester.
9. Manchester: Pop Culture And Urban Regeneration
10. Course Review

The Dutch have picked up on this too: Tilburg University on Manchester:

• Content:
  This unit will explore popular urban cultures in context of initiatives aimed at urban social and economic regeneration. It will draw both on ethnographic and policy sources, closely following initiatives and developments in the local and north west area (Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Kirklees and Greater Manchester). This will set the empirical context for a considered discussion of topics and issues which will include the specifics of British urban regeneration policy, cultural policy, and cultural studies. In addition other topics to be considered include: spatiality and the city; economic development and the cultural industries; cultural industry sub-sectors - music, fashion, multimedia, performance, media, broadcasting; urban regeneration and cultural policy in Manchester.

• Defining Terms:
  Popular culture; urban regeneration; urban governance; economic development; the carnivalesque; third spaces; night time economy; risk society / late modernity; social exclusion.

SW Ohio as the "Lancashire of the Midwest"?: Cincy= Liverpool? Dayton= Manchester? Hamilton and Middletown and Springfield as places like Bolton or Preston? Using our strong indy music scene as something to build on, as something to develop a city brand that is more 'rust-belt meets creative class' rather than cornfield?

Or not.

Maybe I should shut up and dance?

..on edit, but wait, there's more!

A good article in the Grauniad. Here's an exceprt:

The idea of the city as an attractive vibrant place to be begins with rock'n'roll," confirms Anthony Wilson, "Why is that even more true in cities like Liverpool and Manchester? When it comes to popular culture in these two cities, you're talking world, global level."

Punk and acid house are without question the two most important cultural revolutions of the last 25 years and both changed the way we approach cities. Acid house wasn't just about people taking drugs and dancing all night. As a new generation moulded a new lifestyle for itself that was alien to its older siblings, let alone parents, cities slowly changed to reflect that. Pre-club bars started cropping up to cater for changing lifestyles and tastes.

The most innovative bars provided a breeding ground for youth culture, from live DJs and bands to young artists and photographers, fashion shows and film screenings, right down to aspiring chefs. It was a culture that fed on itself and grew organically. More importantly, these embryonic cultures can shift the emphasis of the city's fabric.

Hello, Dayton?