Have a good friend who is considering a move to Dayton, OH and is looking for as much information as she can get regarding the city and life therein. She currently lives in the LA area, so I’m sure there will be some noteworthy differences.
Well, first off, it’s the “Birthplace of Flight” because it’s where the Wright brothers were based. Don’t make the same mistake I did and say “But I thought that Kitty Hawk was in North Carolina”. Daytonites are real touchy about that.
I’m not from there but I was there last summer for a friend’s wedding. (BTW, her stepdad is mayor of a neighboring suburb and her mother is on the Chamber of Commerce so I got some inside scoop) Dayton’s basically a small town with some large manufacturing companies. There doesn’t seem to be much city life; the downtown had pretty much been abandoned and is only now starting some small gentrification.
My impressions of Dayton were blighted looking inner city areas (I took a wrong exit off the interstate) and long drives to suburbs and strip malls (Although the Dayton Art Museum where my friend got married was nice). The local DSW had the most depressing shoe collection I’d ever seen so I don’t think there’s much fashion in Dayton. Oh, and on the way from Cincinatti to Dayton there’s this huge megachurch with a really scary giant statue of Jesus lurching out from a small pond, poised to attack the freeway.
I’m sure a Dayton local will be along to refute everything I’ve just said, but that’s my take on it.
I speak as a native:
One word to describe Dayton would be “average.” There’s really nothing spectacular about it, but for the most part nothing particularly bad about it either.
I suppose the obvious differences between Dayton and the LA area would be size and weather (winter). Dayton city population is 160,000 or so; the metropolitan area is 850-950K (depending on how it’s measured) but is also adjacent to the Cincinnati area for a total region population of around 3 million. As for weather, summers are warm and humid (generally 80s, heat waves in the 90s); winters are cold (daytime highs in the 20s maybe, with some colder periods) and not terribly snowy.
Dayton’s economy kind of blows right now, and the area is being hit by troubles with GM and Delphi. I think there has also just been job loss in general over the past several years as manufacturing continues to decline. The largest employer, though, is Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which isn’t going anywhere in the near future. So of course there is a decent-sized military population, especially in the suburbs of Fairborn and Beavercreek.
Dayton has some inner city problems of crime and abandonment, but they’re not rampant, and overall quality of life in the area is fine. Dayton proper has its nice parts and its ugly parts; ugly not necessarily meaning “don’t go there” (although there are some of those) but just “not nice to look at.” It’s mostly a single-family house city, so there aren’t tons of blocks of apartment buildings or rowhouses. There are some nice rehabbed neighborhoods that IMO would probably be nice to live in, if that’s the kind of setting one is interested in. I should mention, though, that as with a lot of urban districts, the Dayton city schools don’t have a stellar reputation. Outside of the city proper is the whole range of suburban landscapes, pretty much like any place. I imagine the cost of living is a hell of a lot less in Dayton than in LA, by the way.
All things considered, tremorviolet’s impression above of “city life” is not too far off, at least with regard to any hustle and bustle, although I’d never say that downtown is abandoned (certainly not as the tireless booster of all things Ohio that I am). Workday foot traffic is there, but go downtown on a Sunday and it’ll sadly be dead. Unfortunately I think that’s something a lot of Midwestern cities suffer. Downtown retail is pretty much non-existent; downtown dining exists but there’s not a ton of it. I haven’t heard many complaints about the lack of bars and such, though (but I’m not a bar-goer so I really am not sure about that).
Cultural amenities are decent for a city its size. There’s theater, ballet, a contemporary dance company, a philharmonic orchestra, and probably more of those artsy kinds of things which I’m forgetting. Museum-wise the main things are the Art Institute and the Air Force Museum. Dayton plays up its favorite sons, the Wright Brothers, and the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park has several sites around town. (And yes, we are touchy about the Wright Brothers issue. 
) For more entertainment there is a lower-than-dirt minor league baseball team which is relatively new and quite popular. The number of little festivals (ethnic themes and what have you) has surprised me, as I keep learning about ones that I never knew about despite living there for the last 14 years. For bigger thrills it’s only an hour or less to Cincinnati. (Speaking of touchiness, one must also remember that there are two n’s and only one t in Cincinnati!)
For recreation there are a number of nice bike trails in the area, as well as general outdoor stuff at various places. There are a fair number of parks where one can hike, canoe, or whatever. No mountains to challenge you or anything, but you can find some hills if you look for them.
Politically the central part of the metro leans slightly Democratic, probably largely due to labor and African-American votes. I’d characterize the area as socially conservative, though. Probably not like the Bible Belt, but it’s certainly not liberal. Can’t discount that giant Jesus statue, though!
On the whole I think Dayton is fine as a place to live (though not particularly thrilling as I mentioned before), but it’s worth noting that most of the problems in the area are not improving at the moment. Hopefully they will before long, though. However, it’s easy to be completely ignorant of the problems depending on what your job, where you live, etc., not that that’s a good thing. For the most part, life in the suburbs is, well, average.
I’m sure there’s a lot more that could be told, but I hope that’s a decent enough start. If your friend is interested to see what the place looks like, I have a lot of photos (but by no means a comprehensive tour) here.
Cripes, longest post I’ve ever written…
Flickster, I go out to Dayton a couple of times a year and I can throw out a couple of odd-duck interests. First of all, if your friend is as bright as you seem to be, the Dayton branch of Mensa has a bunch of terrific, fun-loving people. Their the reason I go out there. If you e-mail me, I can send you a link to Dayton Area Mensa and give you or your friend the names of some people to get in touch with.
Second, a friend who lived in Dayton until a year or so ago speaks very highly of their branch of the SCA. Among their recent exploits was attempting to light a bonfire with real flaming arrows. (Fortunately, they did have a backup plan.) I’m afraid I don’t have contact information for that lot, but I may be able to dig it out.
I’ve been to a couple of events held in downtown Dayton over a weekend so I’ll vouch for how dead it is. I can remember looking out my window and seeing no one on the streets. The Air Force Museum is also terrific. I’ve only been once, but I’d be happy to go again.
I used to live in Dayton. I would move back there again, if there was a good reason. The best summary I ever heard was that “Dayton is a great place to live, but a lousy place to visit”. There is just not much to “do” as a guest once you have been to the Air Force Museum. That said, the area was a solid midwestern community with good family values.
The worst stories you heard on the news were the occasional animal rights violations being handled by the local sheriff’s department(is nothing like a big city where the news only shows the blood on the streets instead of the bodies because it is a family viewing time. )
Housing is cheap. Streets are relatively safe. There are family events at key holidays - fireworks over the Miami River on the 4th of July, etc.
Dayton is like Cincinnati without all of the glitter.
And, for thsose who are intrgued, here’s the Giant Jesus Statue. Freaked the crap outta me the first time I saw it, driving from Cincinnati to Dayton at night. (and it did kinda color my perceptions of the whole area)
The highway exit with the Giant Jesus is great, by the way… you’ve got the Giant Jesus (and giant church), two flea markets, a Hustler store, two prisons, and there’s been at least some talk of trying to get a casino approved there.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
Good times. For more fun with the Giant Jesus, check out http://www.jeeeb.us.
Heh.
Never mind the Wright brothers - we should have put Bob Pollard on our state quarter.
It’s home to a rotating cadre of other decent bands, if you’re into indie and garage. Check out Elbo’s and the Canal St. Tavern.
There’s also the Dragons, the AAA team for the Reds. You can usually get a seat behind the plate for less than 15 bucks, and the beer’s reasonable.
I’m not really up on the other cultural opportunities - I don’t get up there all that often.
:snort:
I used to have to fly there one week a month for business a few years ago. I will second the comment that it seems positively average. Such as, if you just put all of America into a blender, spun it around, and produced a city you would get Dayton. That isn’t bad and I found it refreshing after living the rest of the time in the Boston area. If somebody told me I had to live there, I couldn’t think of a thing to get excited about (except for the airplane stuff. I love that) but it wouldn’t be anything I could say was bad either. At least its not Cleveland.
So true. If you want to see the Wright Brother’s bike shop, you have to go to Detroit. It’s at Greenfield Village.
We call him the “Cheese Jesus”. At 75 mph traveling down the interstate, the sun setting in the west, he looks like he’s been carved from a giant slab of cheese. Quite disturbing.
My best friend was stationed outside of Dayton. The one thing I remember is the Boner Street ran into Cherry Valley High School.
Couple extra As there: the Dragons are the single-A affiliate. AAA is the Louisville Bats.
Dayton does have a Wright Brothers bike shop, just not the one in which they invented airplanes. They went through several locations, one of which is standing.
Ruby, I like to think of the Giant Jesus the “white chocolate messiah” (phrase stolen from somebody else). I hadn’t thought of cheese before. Butter is also sometimes cited as the material.
Thanks much for all the info. I’ve passed it along and not sure at this point what her decision will be. If she does relocate, it will be LA’s loss and Dayton’s gain.
I remember we had a fun hill in my neighborhood, in the winter it was great for sledding and in the summer we’d just run down it full speed until we fell.
Er … I moved away when I was seven so I guess that’s no help at all.
It’s nice to know that people still live there though. 
heh
Here are a few things I really like about Dayton. Jay’s Restaurant is an excellent seafood restaurant, I eat there whenever I’m in town. The Fraze Pavilion is a small (2000-seat, I think) outdoor venue in nearby Kettering. The setting is charming, inside a pretty park, and the pavilion itself is a great place to enjoy some music. I saw Mark Knopfler there last year, and plan to see Bonnie Raitt and Keb’ Mo’ there this summer. Dayton also has a pleasant airport, IMO. You can easily walk to the terminal from long-term parking, yet it offers a pretty full schedule of flights. I usually try to book flights out of Dayton, rather than Columbus, which is closer to my house, because the Dayton airport is so much easier to deal with. That’s all I know about Dayton. 
Lord God, that’s frightening.