Dayton, Ohio: Final Fortune 500 Company Abandons City

[Hello_Kitty]

At the turn of the last century, Dayton, Ohio, was something akin to the Silicon Valley of its day. It was the home to the Wright brothers, of course, as well as Charles Kettering, the automotive genius who would develop so many innovations that allowed General Motors to become the dominant player in a new industry. And the backbone of all this was the National Cash Register Co. (NCR), founded by John Henry Patterson.

Last week, NCR said it was leaving Dayton after 125 years, decamping its headquarters for what urban theorist James Howard Kunstler would dub one of the suburban “asteroid belts” around Atlanta. It marks the departure of the last of Dayton’s Fortune 500 companies and is in many ways the most vicious blow yet to this battered city.

Considering the future we face, of steadily rising temperatures and their effect on the South, and steadily rising energy prices and their consequences for long, single-occupancy vehicle commuting, this is a boneheaded executive decision. (It wouldn’t be the first: the temperamental Patterson drove away a young Thomas Watson, who went on to found IBM). Worse, it’s a stab in the back for a city that spent years catering to NCR’s every whim. Dayton wasn’t even allowed to compete to keep the headquarters.

But it’s a storm warning for America. There are many Daytons out there.

more...


If you're not familiar with Jon Talton, he's one of the best.

[Condem]

1. Wow, Hello_Kitty

Went to school at UD. This will be just devastating to that town.

[OhioChick]

2. Soon, Ohio will have a shitload of ghost towns. n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. Yep. Scary how whole states are going down the tubes.

[abumbyanyothername]

3. Nice link.

The future of America is not a return to manufacturing however.

The future of America is turning our backs on our rampant consumerism that fuels the world wide free trade movement that is simply taking from us and giving to everyone else.

We have a great wealth in this country (on this continent, actually) and if we choose to manage it well, we can likely make it last into perpetuity. If we choose to chase corporate profits, which require ever expanding consumption, well then we will get the fate we deserve.

In a properly restructured American economy, in my opinion, the two dominant industries would be . . . sound sustainable agriculture (including sustainable energy -- including as much R&D on conserve as on new sources) and communication.

Personal ownership of private transportation units in the industrial age was a mistaken path from the beginning. Shared ownership and communal transportation makes so much more sense.

edit to fix something of an aphasic typo sort of mistake.

[Hello_Kitty]

5. I think you and the author would have a lot to agree on

He wrote a column for the AZ Republic for years and was the lone voice crying out for investment in public transportation. He was right about that. He also warned that Greater Phoenix was far too dependent on housing and needed to diversify its economy. He was right about that too.

[femrap]

16. I disagree regarding

manufacturing....we need to make things. Solar panels, geothermal piping, light bulbs, hemp clothing, hemp oil, etc. Making things is where it's at. Otherwise we have to depend on China....just wait until they decide to place an embargo on us.....

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. BRAC was going to almost kill Wright-Patterson as well

but there was enough political horsepower applied to stop that. However the work that remains is short lived.

[FarCenter]

6. That will leave Ohio with 26 of the Fortune 500 and Georgia with 14

[Hello_Kitty]

7. And?

[FarCenter]

8. A company moving from one state to another is hardly a national problem

Most Fortune 500 companies in Ohio are headquartered in Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland. I think it is pretty hard to have a headquarters in Dayton -- its hard enough to fly in and out of Columbus.

NCR has been declining for years, especially after it was acquired by AT&T and then later spun back out.

They leave Terradata behind in Miamisburg. That was the growing part of the business that they spun out.

[Hello_Kitty]

9. Companies moving from state to state is a major national problem

And Talton addresses it very well in the piece. I think you should read it.

One of the reasons that so many states are bankrupt right now is from being forced to compete in race-to-the-bottom competitions with other states to give corporations big tax breaks. For example, Intel threatened to pull a factory expansion out of Arizona unless the state passed a corporate sales tax "reform" that essentially cut Intel's taxes in the state by 95%. This has cost our state $100 million and we have no guarantee from them that they won't decide to pull out of here in a few years anyway. Talton points out in the article that Dayton gave all kinds of breaks to NCR over the years and were repaid by not even being considered in the bidding process.

[abumbyanyothername]

13. So why doesn't a state, say Ohio or Michigan

stop chasing the corporate carrot and just make a commitment to quality of life for the people who choose to stay there?

Scale back down to a local economy, not by law (against the commerce clause), but by influence and perhaps tax policy. Take your recently unemployed from the cities and offer them a shot at the agrarian lifestyle of the 40s and early 50s --- mixed use farms teeming with life -- livestock, wild and human. Teach them how to farm using more human (and animal) energy inputs and less fossil fuel inputs.

Just as an experiment?

[Hello_Kitty]

14. Sounds like a good idea to me.

I've always felt that tax breaks should be skewed more toward local and small businesses and less toward Walmart.

[SoCalDem]

10. "Right to work", low taxes/tax holiday, cheap land, vs

a workforce that may be costing them some money about now..

Longterm companies who have been in a place for a long time, have "legacy costs".. When they outsource or move far away, they get to jettison all that "waste", and start over..clean, fresh & cheap.

rinse-repeat

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. The largest legacy cost is retirement and medical

Neither is addressed by them moving.

[ChromeFoundry]

11. And what did Strickland do to try and keep them???

Same thing he's done for the past 2 1/2 years... jack shit.

[OhioChick]

12. I can attest to that....

He doesn't even try to wheel and deal with companies to try to keep them here. Real letdown there.

[MercutioATC]

15. "Gold 4 Ya Mouth" left Dayton??

I shit you not. There is a store inb Dayton called "Gold 4 Ya Mouth".