Producing People for Export: A look at demographics

This post was inspired by some comments by Bruce Kettele on, I think, the Gettysburg Kroger issue, about changes in the young adult age cohort. I've had this in the back of my head, then got into some data sets, census and others, to investigate demographic changes in Montgomery County.

I really don't know anything about demography; it sounds so dry. But, getting into it, one can see beyond the numbers to consider the economic and social implications of change in population groups.

For example, the young adult group, say between 18 to 39 (particularly those in their 20s and early 30s), would be the most likely to be patrons of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, creating a young singles scene.

Young adults would also be the source of new households and young couples, potential market for urban housing, and then furniture and house wares. Ikea customers.

And, perhaps most important, the young adult cohort would be the one which would be reproducing the population via family formation, having babies and raising young children. If the young adult cohort declines, one can anticipate a decline in births and young children as there are fewer couples to have them (assuming the fertility rate is constant).

A wrinkle in this birthrate consideration is immigration. Immigrants have a higher fertility rate, meaning more babies per women, so if there is a substantial in-migration from outside the USA to a community (like Chicago, or California) one could still see a growing number of children. The Dayton area hasn't seen much immigration, so this issue is mostly moot here.

So are some numbers from the Census American Factfinder site, grouped into certain age cohorts or groups.


It's clear there are some drops, not big ones, in the Children & Teens (0-17) and Young Adult (18-39) age groups from 1990 to 2000.

Taking a closer look, it seems the big changes are in the 20-29 and 30-39 groups of young adults. The 18 & 19 group is pretty stable.

But then, looking at percentage changes between 1990 and 2000, it's interesting to see that the largest % drop are in the young adult and young children cohorts. One can infer a vicious cycle developing, as there are perhaps fewer young couples to have kids, leading to fewer kids.

Finally, taking a look at births and deaths, using projections from this website. As one can see, using a simple linear projection, deaths will equal births around 2020, though one can anticipate an increase in the death rate as the large baby boomer generation passes on into history.

One wonders if the birth rate decline remains linear or becomes or exponential at some point, if there is a continuous decline in the young adults (assuming minimal in-migration and a static fertility rate).

Once could also assume a long-term negative effect on the local economy, as employers are faced with a shrinking labor pool, and might be inclined to relocate to growing areas, or just shut down as the workforce and management age, and then retire. This would be another vicious cycle, as reduced employment opportunity forces young adults to leave the area (but one would assume in-migration would pick up to replenish the labor pool).

This has been interesting but I'm not satisfied with my approach to demographics. What are we really measuring here?

Note that these census numbers are just snapshots. The census counts people in the, say, 20-29 category in 1990, and then counts people in that category in 2000. We can only compare counts and say "there are fewer people in this category in 2000 than there was in 1990".

But what happened to those people in the 20-29 category in 1990? Where are they in 2000?

That would be more useful, to see if Dayton (Montgomery County) is producing people for export.

The Shifflers do it Again

...reviving downtown, one building at a time.

Todays newspaper has an article on the McCrory's Building pending reopening:

The aroma of fresh popped caramel corn will once again fill the McCrory building downtown. The first floor of the 1924-era building, closed for more than a decade, reopens in about two weeks as Suney's Beauty and More.

The Shifflers first downtown project was the Kuhns Building. This is next door. It appears this block of Main Street just may be coming back a bit (it is pretty much the last one with any retail on it.

I'm not sure how carmel corn fits in with what sounds like a beauty shop (maybe its the "and more"), but we will find out in two weeks.

Lawyers, Gays, and Money

(…..apologies to Warren Zevon)

One of the problems with downtown Dayton s the fear factor, that people are afraid of downtown and avoid it. If they are forced to come downtown for things like arts events they scurry back to their cars in secure parking lots and garages and get out of Dodge, ASAP.

So who isn't afraid of the city? What economic or demographic groups actually prefer downtown, or are downtown fairly often, and how to build on this?

Lawyers

It seems that the legal profession is still entrenched downtown. Of all the professions lawyers and ancillary services are the most committed to locating downtown. Perhaps this is also the market for daytime dining establishments. The city should encourage the legal profession to continue to locate downtown, and to retain law firms in the center city.

Early career professionals and legal support workers, who most likely are single or married without school age kids, would be the target market for lofts and townhouses close in to the city. This youthful demographic would also be a customer base for downtown nightlife and restaurants open after business hours, leading to a singles/dating "scene".

Gays

A touchy subject locally, but this is one demographic category that comes downtown fairly regularly. The gay community in the Dayton region is a classic "community without propinquity", spatially dispersed in where they live, but concentrated in where they socialize, which, in Dayton, remains the gay bar.

All but one of the gay bars are in the city (and the suburban one is reportedly trying to move back to town). Five are in a one block area of downtown. And the GLBT (sounds like a sandwich: Gay Lettuce Bacon and Tomato) community center is apparently trying to locate on that same block.

So gays are not afraid of the city. They come downtown every weekend and on weekdays to socialize. Downtown is already the de-facto "gay neighborhood" of a dispersed community. Why doesn’t the city try to target market to this group more, encouraging gay businesses beyond bars, or even encouraging more gay nightspots? A good example would be the Foundry: Reportedly a trouble spot, perhaps the city could facilitate a deal that would turn this into a gay dance club/show bar, rather than totally shut down the place.

Beyond business, gays would be the obvious target market for downtown living, having lofts, apartments, and townhouses within easy walking distance of the community center and nightclubs. Being mostly childless, the "problem schools" issue wouldn't be deal breaker for choosing to live in the city.

Money

If downtown is to be a residential choice for gays and lawyers, there has to be more housing. And it costs money to either build new or convert old commercial buildings to lofts. Money that seems to be in short supply.

Perhaps what’s needed is a deal fund to provide gap financing. St Louis did this, via a loan pool provided by local banks for conversion projects. Louisville also has a similar deal fund (provided by a quango), but the city also directly intervenes, purchasing and then reselling properties at very cheap prices for redevelopment.

Such a fund could make redevelopment of downtown buildings into residential easier, and perhaps lowering development costs to where rents and sale prices can be lowered, making downtown housing more attractive to younger, early career professionals, or to creative class types who might not have high-paying work.

Target marketing to certain city-friendly groups plus an aggressive development and funding plan for housing could be an innovative, but quite controversial, way to market downtown.

But then, downtown is in as much as a jam as that protagnist in the Warren Zevon song.

Library as Homeless Day Shelter.

A reader posted this as a remark to another post, but it deserves its own post as it touches on something that I've noticed happen over time. The downtown library has become a de-facto homeless day shelter:

"Hi,
Just wanted to voice my opinion about the downtown Dayton "library".
I lived in Dayton for 40 years and was back during the holidays to visit my son and his family. At about 9 am I saw about 80 homeless people waiting for the library to open. My daughter in law says that this happens every day. I asked if they had provisions or programs for these folks, but she said that they have nowhere else to go, and that the library will never ask them to leave, read, or study.

She says that she, as well as many of her downtown neighbors, won't go in, and not just because of the social shelter that it has become. She told me that it is well known that it is a hotbed of drug traffic and, to a lesser degree, prostitution. The overall uncleanliness, both inside and out, is very disturbing.

According to her, though, the hardest thing to see is the low level of staff morale. They seem to feel helpless, and that very few of them seem to enjoy being there at all.

This saddens me, as I know that many levys for the libraries get approved. I wonder what has happened, or how it happened. My daughter in law tells me that those who are able must drive out to the suburbs in order to use a library. To attempt to use the internet or to find a quiet place to study at the downtown library is impossible due to the smell, the noise, and the general discomfort throughout the building.

One of her winter hobbies is genealogy, and says that there is an outstanding Local History area, but to get from the research area to the one usable room, she has to nearly crawl over people are in there sewing, ironing, playing cards, eating, and sleeping. I can't understand what has happened. I see the attempts to revitalize my home town, and admire the improvements and serious efforts of my old friends and neighbors, but this is an affront and embarrassment to the city.

Has this been addressed in your local paper? What can my son and his family do, as citizens, to increase awareness about this? He says that he has seen some elderly security people at the door, but that they seemed to be dozing off.

I just wanted to get this off of my chest and I sincerly hope that the city can come together to save this institution (as well as the beautiful Arcade!) Many thanks,
K. Carter"

And thank you K Carter. When I first moved to Dayton I frequently used the downtown library and one of the things I recall from back then, in 1988/89/90 was that it was no where's near as overrun by the homeless as was the Sacramento libary (where I used to live). Now it has become just as bad.

I use the history room and the geneology section quite a bit to research local history. The local history room is a haven, but sometimes it's tough to find a place to work in the basement geneology/periodical section what with the homeless camping out at tables and carrells (they are peacefull, though).

I do recall hearing this past summer from a retired librarian that the library board was thinking of moving the downtown library to a new facility at the UD NCR site. This might be a good solution to the homeless problem as it removes the library from Cooper Park, which is sort of a homeless hangout.

The Chicago Tribune on Dayton Manufacturing Malaise

The good old Chicago Tribune did an extensive article in their Sunday Magazine section on the end-game for the industrial Midwest. I excerpted the passage on Dayton at Urban Ohio if anyone cares to read it (though the entire article is quite good, and deals with a variety of locations)

One part I thought was particularly interesting was this passage, quoting county administration (and erstwhile member of the Riverdale Rats) Joe Tuss:

Dayton, like most Midwestern manufacturing towns and cities, fought this trend. It held on to its shrinking factories, supported them at all cost, assuming that what went down must come up again. They remained the biggest employers in town. Besides, having lived off them for a century, nobody could imagine life without them.

"It's been death by a thousand cuts," Joe Tuss, the Montgomery County economic development director, told me. "We've been blessed and cursed. We've hung on to the core manufacturing jobs much longer than most places. We allowed a large workforce to make a good union wage. But now the economic forces are catching up with us . . . in a big way. The Delphi bankruptcy is our tipping point. We have to try to reinvent ourselves--but this work to preserve our base, it all took time and energy away from reinventing ourselves."

Interesting, that bolded quote. Tuss is saying that Dayton is behind the power curve in preparing for the transition to the new economy.

But also, an interesting observation on how the era of mass production jobs at good wages lasted much later here, that Dayton was sort of an anachronism, a living economic fossil, due to Delphi/Delco and GM, and maybe the tool and die industry.

More on manufacturing at this post,
...and in this Urban Ohio thread,
...and a historic look and the long postwar slide here.

Third World Reggae Fest

Since its in the 'teens, windy, with a few inches of drifting snow outside, lets go back to Labor Day, for the Third World Reggae Fest at Dave Hall Plaza, the green heart of Downtown Dayton.

This is one of the highlights of the summer downtown. The crowd is just so laid-back and diverse, such a mix of folks, and the music is so danceable. People will certainly be out there in front of the stages dancing along (even yer humble host has been known to get up and move around to the music). Just a lot of postive energy at this event.

I think this is Seefari, AKA Tom Caroll, a longtime presence at the festival...he even wrote a song about it.
The fellow in the background in the long hair, on the drums, is "Ras Robert", also one of the organizers of the event.
And here is the great Sharon Lane. She is a singer, plays the piano, and writers her own music. She performs on occasion over at Canal Street Tavern, not as much as she used to. Her husband plays sax and backs her when she's performing (and he was in one of the bands today). They have sort of a bluesy, lounge sound going on. I was (am) a fan and used to go see her gigs a lot when I first moved here.
"War is Not the Answer"...total respect to this lady who let me take a pix of her customized denim vest:


To see more of this event click here for more pix.

For 2008: Daytonology or I Luv Looavull?

Not sure yet. But I just love that billboard!