Open letter to Dayton defenders

Homeless.

Here is the text of an e-mail i never sent to the editors of the Dayton Daily News and some other locals. For whatever reason, it was abandoned. This was concerning a recent Forbes article asserting Dayton, among several other Ohio cities, was among the top ten fastest dying cities in America. Our local media, far from investigating the underlying reasons why we should be so included, instead insisted on defending our [un]fair city, claiming that Dayton wasn’t really dying – just changing.

You know what else is a change? Death.

(Note: this is not very well written and equally badly edited. As i’ve said, it never got beyond an early stage.)

Dear Defenders of Dayton’s Dismal Depression,

When I read recently that Forbes had included Dayton on their fastest-dying cities list, my first emotion was that of vindication. Not denial, not grief. Forbes has unleashed a hell-fury of truth about not only my beloved but troubled Dayton, but of America and the plight of her “flyover” cities in general, that Americans, and especially Ohioans, would do well to soberly consider. The assessment of Dayton and other Ohio cities as “dying” may indeed seem extreme to some; to me, it’s an obvious and glaring fact which has been tucked away in a shameful pile of Things We’d Rather Not Think About, right next to such topics as Darfur and the roasting of the habeas corpus.

The second thought I had was much more visceral. How dare our politicians, our scant remaining corporate paymasters, and – mon dieu! - our only mainstream newspaper deny the facts! The Dayton Daily News – our local press, that last bastion of free thought and the very Bringer of Light to the people of our poor city – which should be not just repeating this story, but hounding the civic leadership for answers and action… capitulating to the crows and the carrion-eaters by pretending, ostrich-like, that they don’t even exist! The very thought of such monumental denial on a scale so epic would normally be laughable. Unfortunately, it makes me sick to my stomach instead.

Let me first tell you about the problem with America and our economy. It’s based almost solely on rampant, locust-like consumerism. Sooner or later, this must inevitably fail as more and more resources are gobbled up. The Bush regime and the neo-conservatives (what an inappropriate designation!), clearly in cahoots with Big Business, of course have been all too happy to push this twisted fairy-tale on us, while continuing to trade our manufacturing and service sectors overseas. How an economy based on consumerism which does not have its actual resources within its own borders is supposed to continue without eating its own tail is beyond mere human comprehension. Then again, those in Washington, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street who facilitate this economic raping of our nation have hoisted themselves up as demigods unto us their servants, so maybe only they know.

Now let me tell you how this fits into the problem with Dayton.

We have a city where the rich live outside of town, away from the gunfire our police seem impotent to curb, living comfortably enough on inheritances to be unconcerned about our myriad problems. We have an ineffective mayor whose ties with the mortuary industry probably explains why violent crime doesn’t seem to be a massive concern, her involvement with the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition notwithstanding. Our police are underpaid, overstressed, understaffed, and overly-jaded.

We have a business district with dark, unoccupied storefronts and crime-ridden alleys, despite having a multi-million dollar laser-fountain (these usually being a magnet for prosperity, one might assume). We have a few faltering corporations, run by gluttonous CEOs, which treat their employees so legendarily poorly that voluntary attrition rivals their quarterly layoffs.

We have Wal-Marts cropping up all around town, destroying the few remaining locally-owned businesses. Major retail chains are moving out of the West side due not only to crime but also to sheer racist fear. Local shopping malls refuse bus service coming from the bad part of town, which is also where they get much of their workforce.

The stereotypical urban neighborhood with its gun shops located next to or across the street from its liquor stores is as real here as it is in similarly afflicted, crime-infested cities. Down the street from those are the check-cashing places. If the poor aren’t deprived of their health or their lives by one, they are robbed of their futures by the other.

Worst of all, we have a severely dysfunctional education system that is incapable of receiving even remotely adequate funding because nobody wants to foot the bill, with residents repeatedly turning down levies to the detriment of not only our kids, but our very future (after all, who will populate our future but the kids we steadfastly refuse to educate?). The lucky ones will be home-schooled, while the unluckiest of these will have the tragic misfortune of being “educated” by a creationist parent lacking a rudimentary understanding of science or history and having almost no accountability, despite the heavy responsibility.

Tenantless.

In the neighborhood that I live in, as well as the neighborhood I lived in before that, there are mostly empty houses which are crumbling, condemned, and shuttered. Few houses are in marketable shape. Meth is rampant, as is homelessness (despite the vast numbers of vacant houses!), unemployment, alcoholism, crime, litter, violence, prostitution, and all manner of bad behavior.

So where is Dayton headed? This coming school year, more and more kids are going to be truant because they don’t have rides to school, while their parents, whether tragically unemployed or just stupidly indifferent (or both), won’t be effective in providing them with transportation. The worst truants will inevitably get into trouble, beginning what will be a lifetime career in crime which will haunt this city for a generation or more.

This city is inarguably unhealthy; anybody can see that. Any media outlet which irresponsibly asserts that Dayton and other Ohio cities are not dying is not only doing a tremendous amount of harm to the city and its citizens (a la The Matrix), but is also making a pathetic mockery of us in the eyes of the rest of the nation (see This is Spinal Tap). Swallow that along with your pride and stop pretending that everything is okay when it’s clearly not.

Best of luck,

-jeremy jarratt

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