Take a tour of Baltimore and you will quickly see the consequences of government-sponsored
disinvestment.
Downtown is filled with gleaming skyscrapers, a result of decades of tax breaks, but African-American
neighborhoods continue to suffer from neglect and disrepair.
But this pattern and the results are not limited to Baltimore.
In Dayton, Ohio, city officials appear to be embracing the same idea.
Quite soon the city's majority African-American neighborhoods could see nine schools, a hospital,
a mental health center, and a grocery store shuttered.
Meanwhile, the city has offered tax breaks to developers to build a downtown hotel.
Sound familiar?
To discuss this future of West Dayton and what this might say about the future of African-American
communities across the country, I have three activists here from the organization Neighborhood
Over Politics.
Jo'el Jones, Jamica Garrison, and Shenise Turner.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for having us.
Sure.
First, just give us some background on Dayton, Ohio.
How is West Dayton different?
Yes.
So Dayton, Ohio, Dayton is actually a Midwest city.
We have a current population about of 141,000.
At our peak, we were 260,000, 250,000.
Due to the economic downturn, due to manufacturing leaving our area, again we have suffered a
great loss in our population, along with the number of jobs and in the industry of manufacturing.
Currently, as stated, we are experiencing 141,000 total residents in the Dayton area.
We're about 52, 55 square miles.
We're just north of Cincinnati.
We're actually about 55 miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio.
With that, we've seen some challenges with our population.
Again, the city of Dayton is at a point where we're trying to revive itself with the focus,
unfortunately, being on the core, the downtown core in downtown Dayton.
What that has caused is it has caused a great devastation and a loss of investment in our
surrounding areas in which they consist of not only the west side of Dayton, but the
east side of Dayton as well.
Again, there has been a lot of great emphasis on the core and we notice that this is a trend
across the country that a number of metropolitan areas are experiencing, but as stated, it
has left a huge void in our neighborhoods.
Quite honestly, the city of Dayton, we're experiencing over 7,000-plus vacant and blighted
structures in our neighborhoods.
We also have been a victim of predatory lending.
The list goes on and on.
We suffered tremendously through the economic downturn, and so right now we're just really
trying to rebound and that the residents are still of value and that we need to really,
truly have an equitable plan in place where we are seeing equitable development.
Not just focusing on downtown, but making sure that our neighborhoods are, again, seeing
some equal, if you will, equal distribution in terms of how our federal and state funds
are being spent.
Sure.
Now, let me ask.
One of the things that was mentioned was that an Aldi's grocery store in West Dayton is
closing.
Why is that so important?
Why is one grocery store so important?
Jamica, you want to go ahead and speak to that?
Yes.
Currently, Dayton, Ohio is ... Well, actually Montgomery Country is the 12th largest food
desert in the United States.
West Dayton is one of the areas that are affected.
Kroger's closed on Gettysburg in West Town probably about seven years ago, and so Aldi's
was the next best option for residents for sustainable healthy food options in the Dayton
area.
Specifically, West Dayton.
That is such a huge impact to not only West Dayton, but also surrounding areas like Trotwood,
Jefferson Township, and, let me see, other areas that patronize that particular location.
With that being said, we do have centers and organizations that provide food pantries,
but food pantries are limited to the items that they have available to them.
If someone wanted to actually do a large grocery store shopping for the week they would have
to go 5 to 7 or 10 miles to the closest store, which would be Kroger's located on Siebenthaler.
If you look at the demographics of the residents in that particular quadrant and in the city
of Dayton as a whole, transportation is one of the number one barriers.
Now you have people who used to be able to walk or will still be able to walk to Aldi's
through the end of April of this year will now have to figure what alternatives they
can utilize, which may mean an additional hit to their budget and it may mean for them
to be a little bit more creative when it comes to carpooling or when it comes to catching
a bus they might have to do a different route.
I heard another young lady who did an interview.
She said that she may even have to do a cab or do Uber because catching the bus, there's
a limited amount of grocery bags that you can carry when she has her children with her
as well, and so those are some of the things that are impacting our citizens primarily
on the west side of Dayton.
Just to add to that.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I just wanted to add that, and one of the reasons ... You asked the question, "Why is
this such a problem?", and Jamica did talk to that, but I wanted to add to that is that
this community, everyone is not supported by subsidies.
These are people who are working 40 hour or more hours a week at a job.
Okay?
The fact that city leaders or the fact that ... the thought that you may even have to
grocery shop at a food pantry is unacceptable.
Now, we do have an issue with livable wages in this community as a whole, but we're talking
about people who get up every day, go to work, take their kids to school, pay their rent
or mortgage, and they no longer, after the end of the summer, will have a viable option
to feed their family without going, like Jamica said, 10 miles away.
That's huge.
It is.
Now, why is West Dayton losing its hospitals and mental health care centers as well?
Well, in regards to the hospital, we've been in conversation with leadership who made those
decisions and the community is still in that process.
Their rationale for that is they don't have enough occupancy and that their profit margin
is no longer acceptable, so the hospital may need to close.
Now, here's the big issue about this.
The structure, this hospital has been, of course, an anchor in the community for decades.
It's not just about providing viable healthcare for a community.
It's about what that particular corner means to the economic viability of a community that's
already been stripped of almost everything.
In conversations with the hospital leaders, I asked a blatant question just a couple days
ago.
"Okay, so you are not able to make a profit margin that is acceptable to your board members.
Why not sell the hospital to another hospital who may be able to come and make a profit
margin so that the people in that community can still have healthy options?"
What was told to me to my face was that was not an option because it meant competition.
Wow.
What do you think is the point of this disinvestment and this series of closures?
Well, this is what you said earlier, Taya.
This is a trend across the nation when it comes to urban communities and the widening
of the wage gap between the rich and the poor.
How companies view their bottom line profits.
Is it profitable for me to locate my business and thrive in urban neighborhoods where people
are barely making it?
Not because, again, that they're on some type of government assistance, but because the
wages that they are making are not comparable to the suburban neighborhood.
In these communities, there is this rush like we've been talking about to disinvest.
We have our speculation.
We believe that it is the disinvestment of that community so that gentrification can
begin to take place.
It's just a trend, it's a pattern that has happened all over the country.
It's happening in Baltimore, as you see.
West Dayton has some of the most beautiful views downtown and has wonderful housing stock
in spite of all the blighted housing and some of the most beautiful thoroughfares.
If we could put that type of attention into our communities in the west and east side
of Dayton as we do downtown, things would start to look much different, but that's something
that hasn't happened.
Right.
Now, in my city, Baltimore, city officials gave out a $600 million TIF, tax incremental
financing incentive, to a billionaire named Kevin Plank after the Baltimore uprising was
caused the police custody death of Freddie Gray.
Have you seen developers in Dayton receive tax incentives like that?
Yes.
It has been a huge trend in our downtown area.
Again, the focus has been on the core in downtown Dayton, and so what we've seen is a lot of
out-of-town investors, developers that are literally buying up large parcels of land
and with that, they are receiving tax abatements.
What we're essentially doing is, and we use the term often, is we're essentially robbing
from our public school district.
We're robbing from our community as a whole, and so what we've called for on a number of
bases, we've asked to put in place policies, a community benefits policy, so that we can
start to see equitable development where we honestly can see that the tax abatements,
that there are a number of units that may be set aside for low to moderate income range
individuals and families.
Well, I would just advise you, Baltimore did create an inclusionary housing law in order
to ensure that developers who are given tax breaks actually make units that your average
resident in Baltimore can afford, but that law hasn't been adequately enforced.
I would just warn you about what's happening here in Baltimore City.
Exactly.
Yes.
You don't want the same thing to happen in Dayton.
Now Jo'el, you said something interesting during a TEDx talk.
You said, "Bulldozers and cranes have a language of their own," that they have a message to
urban communities.
What message is that?
Well, when we see bulldozers in the urban community that means tearing down.
Right?
That means the removal of the old.
What we don't see happening at the same time, we don't see cranes, which is the rebuilding,
the reenergizing these communities.
We see bulldozers.
We don't see enough of them, as a matter of fact, in our community, but we don't see the
cranes.
We see the cranes downtown, and so when you see cranes you become excited because you
know something fresh and new is coming.
When you drive through some of our neighborhoods, Taya, and I kid you not, just like in Baltimore
it really looks like war zone.
It's not because of shootings.
It's because we have homes that are literally ... One house you can see from the front to
the back of the next street.
These homes are burnouts.
Our kids are going by these streets.
When I talk about bulldozers and cranes, bulldozers aren't necessarily bad, but you have to have
a crane in there also to revive our community and that is what is not happening in West
and East Dayton.
Now, the mayor of Dayton is a Democrat.
How has the Democratic party responded to the needs of citizens in West Dayton?
Well, you now-
That's an interesting question.
Yeah.
Well, I'm sure they're going to chime in.
We don't look at this as a Democrat or Republican issue, Taya.
We do have a mayor who is a Democrat, and the Democratic party is likely to more progressive
and more equitable when it comes to serving people who are from a lower socioeconomic
status.
We don't look at her as just as the Democratic mayor.
We look at her as the leader.
Even though we do not have a strong mayoral government here in the city of Dayton.
We have a city manager form of government.
We look at her as a leader, the cheerleader for the entire community.
I will just go out on a limb and say as a Democrat I do expect more from my party since
they are in charge.
You would think that more would happen to level the playing field for our community,
which doesn't seem to be the case.
Nine schools are slated to close.
How would that impact the families of West Dayton?
Deflate.
Yeah.
Tremendously.
I think we all know that, right?
The closing of nine schools ... We have here in Dayton these schools and some of the schools
have 25, 27, 31 kids in the classroom, so by closing nine schools on the west side ... Let
me back up.
Dayton Public Schools built itself out as a school district that embraced community
schools, neighborhood schools, if you have.
The neighborhood school centers were supposed to be more than just a school.
They were going to be opened up to the entire community.
By closing these nine schools ... Now, let me back up again.
These community centers, which are part of the neighborhood school system, work as meeting
centers, all kinds of things for community programming, right?
When the schools are closed, not only are we pushing these kids into other school buildings
where we're going to up the classroom, but we're also shutting down that sense of community
that the public school system said they built themself up on, neighborhood schools.
Here's the issue.
The issue is that our school system is second to last in the entire state.
The entire state.
Out of 600 and something school districts, Dayton Public Schools is second to last, unfortunately.
We know that is a trend in a lot of urban centers, but the issue is we just built these
schools, Taya.
These schools are about 9 to 10 years old.
Wow.
They're practically brand new.
Every school that they want to close is a brand new building.
That's incredible.
Every building.
When we talk about closing these schools, we're talking about moving these kids from
the west side to more east side schools or overcrowding the remainder of the west side
schools in a school district that already has a reputation of academic failure.
Now, I don't think you have to be a genius to see that this is a recipe for disaster.
Something similar happened decades ago in Chicago.
I'm not saying that's what's going to happen here in Dayton, but we see what happened in
Chicago.
We cannot afford to allow that to happen here in Dayton, Ohio.
Yeah, you can go ahead, but I'm just saying we are working earnestly to bring attention
to this.
I am trying to force my way on the task force so that there can be another voice.
There's a lot of resistance with that, unfortunately.
You would think that you would want to have a cohesive community conversation about an
issue that is so impactful.
I think you make such an excellent point.
Baltimore City has certainly suffered from politicians who have used Baltimore City and
its problems as their own personal springboard for their own political ambitions.
I think you're so right about holding these politicians accountable and making sure that
you actually get politicians who care about the community that they claim they want to
serve.
Absolutely.
I want to thank you, my guests from Neighborhood Over Politics, Jo'el Jones, Jamica Garrison,
and Shenise Taylor, for joining me in this important discussion on gentrification and
how residents can stand their ground.
I'm your host, Taya Graham, and I want to thank you for joining me at the Real News
Network.