A Rust Belt City's Economic Struggle, Dayton, Ohio, Left Behind America: PBS Frontline, Propublica

Last edited Sun Aug 4, 2024, 09:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Frontline/Propublica chronicled Dayton's struggle to recover in the aftermath of recession and the economic and social forces shaping the lives of residents in a city where nearly 35% of people live in poverty. (33 mins, aired 2018). YouTube comments, click on YT icon in video.

- Select YT Comments: - 'It never ceases to amaze me how quickly we forget history. As soon as an individual, group or entity says 'it's not my problem'... drugs, having jobs, education, healthcare, etc. - 'I grew up in the 1960s. My next door neighbor graduated HS and immediately got a job at General Motors (GM) making $8.00 an hour with full benefits - which is equivalent to $40 an hour today. All those jobs are gone now. GM, NCR, Frigidaire, etc left and there's nothing to replace them.'
- What's really sad is things are much worse since this was filmed.' - 'I just left Akron, Ohio 2 weeks ago and I can attest it was an industrial hellscape. Homelessness and poverty everywhere.'..
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DAYTON is a city in Montgomery and Greene counties and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, U.S. As of the 2020 census, the city proper had a population of 137,644, making it the 6th-most populous city in Ohio. It anchors the state's 4th-largest metropolitan area, the Dayton metropolitan area, which had 814,049 residents. Dayton is located within Ohio's Miami Valley region, 50 miles north of Cincinnati and 60 miles west of Columbus.

Dayton was founded in 1796 along the Great Miami River and named after Jonathan Dayton, a Founding Father who owned a significant amount of land in the area. It grew in the 19th century as a canal town and was home to many patents and inventors, most notably the Wright brothers, who developed the first successful motor-operated airplane.

It later developed an industrialized economy and was home to the Dayton Project, a branch of the larger Manhattan Project, to develop polonium triggers used in early atomic bombs. With the decline of heavy manufacturing in the late 20th century, Dayton's businesses have diversified into a service economy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,_Ohio

RUST BELT. The Rust Belt, formerly the Steel Belt, is a region of the Northeastern, Midwestern U.S., and the very northern parts of the Southern U.S. It includes Upstate NY, PA, OH, WV, IN, IL, the Lower Peninsula of MI, southeastern WI, and small parts of KY, NJ, and the St. Louis metropolitan area in MO. Cities in the Rust Belt include Allentown, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Gary, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Toledo, Trenton, and Youngstown.

The term "Rust Belt" is a dysphemism to describe industry that has "rusted out", usually referring to the impact of deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay on these regions attributable to the shrinking industrial sector especially including steelmaking, automobile manufacturing, and coal mining. The term gained popularity in the U.S. beginning in the 1980s when it was commonly contrasted with the Sun Belt, which was surging.

The Rust Belt experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been declining since. In the late 20th century, the Rust Belt began experiencing the elimination or outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, which in some cases continues in the 21st century. The region, which previously was the nation's industrial heartland, has experienced economic distress and a resulting decline in population.

Since the 1980s, presidential candidates have devoted much of their time to the economic concerns of the Rust Belt region, which includes several populous swing states, including MI, OH, PA, and WI. These states were critical to Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election, his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, and to the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election. New England was also hit hard by industrial decline during the same era, but cities closer to the East Coast, including Greater Boston, the NY metropolitan area, and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area adapted by diversifying or transforming their economies to shift focus towards services, advanced manufacturing, and high-tech industries...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt

- 'Trump claims he’s pro-worker. Project 2025 will gut labor rights.' The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2024. Far-right plan for a Republican presidency would undercut unions, strip child labor laws and boost corporate profits,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/04/project-2025-trump-unions-overtime-pay

OHIO, (Wiki, Ed). earliest and most influential industrial powerhouses during the 20th century. Although it has transitioned to a more information- and service-based economy in the 21st century, it remains an industrial state, ranking seventh in GDP as of 2019, with the third-largest manufacturing sector and second-largest automobile production...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio#:~:text=Ohio%20