Toledo - Top 5 Emptiest Cities

Yep. And the pic is of a house in Columbus. Even reporters don't want to come here.

^ OUCH!

I read last year that Dayton was either top or #2 with nearly 20% of all housing units being vacant. Buffalo was the other city that was either 1 or 2. Toledo being on a list like this doesn't surprise me and with water rates rising, more people in the lower income working neighborhoods, simply will be forced to further consolidate living quarters.

Brain drain? and middle-class workers moving to greener pastures? Don't know, it surprises me, but then again almost every neighborhood I drive through form Oregon, Toledo, even Perrysburg is littered with "For Sale" signs.

Toledo screwed itself by sticking with too much manufacturing jobs and not bringing in more recession proof/service oriented jobs. It will take more lower paying...$8 to $11/hr service/call center/backoffice jobs to help. No you can't get all 31,000 back to work, but a typical operation is going to put 300-500 back to work...so it'll be a start. The biggest problem is that you need to cough up incentives to get companies to move in, especially with more favorable areas. However, you aren't going to find many service companies or BPOs that will want to come in and agree to a "living wage" dictated by a city. Not to mention, there is going to be a fear of going into a union strong city when the industry is predominately non-union. Of course that is what anti-union training and non-solicitation/distribution employee agreements are for.

personally I consider $11 an hour to be a half-way decent wage. I remember when i first reached it, i thought I'd won the lottery. 8-)

It's clear that unions and a political structure that works hand-in-hand with them has done more than it's share to chase and keep employers away from Toledo. Now they are using water as a weapon to control development and increase their revenue. All the "living wage" talk is ridiculous. The market is supposed to dictate those things, not a bunch of unions and politicians.

Toledo, is one gigantic Democrat-Liberal experiment that has gone horribly wrong !
Anyone denying that is quite deranged.
67,000 great paying jobs gone since 1983 , when Kaptur became the The Number One job killer, ignorant citizens voted into office.

Toledo: is branded as union ruined, with politicians so stupid, even Bass Pro , thanks Finkbiener for the helicopter ride showing the utter destruction the Dims have done to us all.And, moved their preferred building site to ROSSFORD !!!

I had a job offer....3.6 gpa, business degree with experience...call center, min wage, part time, in BG

First job offer Ive really had in 6 months - I cant even pay my student loans on this.

/bitch session over

"... even Bass Pro , thanks Finkbiener for the helicopter ride showing the utter destruction the Dims have done to us all.And, moved their preferred building site to ROSSFORD !!!"

That's a myth that I've explained before. Bass Pro did not move their preferred building site from Toledo to Rossford because Bass Pro was never interested in Toledo, only Rossford.

2006 comment:

Another 2006 comment:

2007 comment:

OhioKimono: welcome to the OWS movement. It sucks. The only reason I'm not floating on cloud nine is due to college debt. Not even the real debt, but 10 years of interest/fees. Granted it is part my fault, but having advisors and the economy circa 1996-1999 saying "take all the debt you want" you'll be making 75k-100k a year in IT.

BS, I went from a NASA contract in college, to no jobs, or Walmart and Taco Bell. Wasn't till I moved to Toledo I found a job even making $9/hr. Though luckily with raw social engineering and hard work I managed to get a real job making 36k, then ultimate 45k here.

Good money, but when you're paying $963 a month in student loans for 12 freaking years, it takes it's course lol.

Ok now I'm done /ranting :) Just glad I live here and make what I do cause back home I would not have made it, and even now still paycheck to paycheck but bottom line... I'm making it work.

I like your attitude INC!

More room for me to play! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Just do a search for bass pro and tax breaks:

http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Bass+Pro+tax+breaks

Are the majority low-wage jobs with a chain retailer like the above worth the tax breaks?

also, POLITICS ----->

It's hard for me to fully believe that Toledo unions and local politicians are responsible for the same economic decline that all of the cities in the old northern industrial region are experiencing. A lot of our old industrial landscape was created at a time when immigrants from Europe were trying to build a new life for themselves. Now we're all trying to figure out how to make a living after technology has replaced a great deal of human labor.

From what I can see, new growth in northern Ohio is centered around retail distribution centers (Menard's, Lowe's etc.) located in rural areas. Every big box store in town needs to draw upon a bigass distribution center somewhere, capable of handling thousands of trucks, with easy railroad access. There aren't many skilled laborers inside those establishments, just people driving forklifts and a handful of tech support/HR/safety staff.

New construction for these places consists of giant metal buildings, not repurposed old industrial facilities that were suitable for enterprises of the 1950s.

This setup is made possible by modern lifestyles and the shopping habits of the American consumer. Personally, I'd rather get most of my (rather predictable) shopping done in a short trip to a big store. I can use the leisure time to patronize the farmer's markets, the apple orchards, and local restaurants!

Part of me thinks we should be giving some of our vacant industrial areas back to the Indian tribes that were forced off their land. We had a good long chance to use it for our own purposes, and now we can't seem to keep the "good old days" going ... whether it's In Toledo, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Detroit, or Cleveland.

Could rip it all down and farm it. Unless its all contaminated soil, then I don't even think the Indians would want it.