Lima, Ohio: A portrait of not getting by in the Rust Belt

[pbrower2a]

The Right tells us that we need more economic inequality, less economic security, more brutal management, and even lower wages so that the only part of America whose welfare matters -- the super-rich -- can indulge themselves more completely.

German efficiency with Bangladeshi wages, enforced with brutality... the dream of plutocrats. It's been tried -- in Germany.  Nazi Germany, that is, and the brutal order for workers is not so infamous as the genocide and aggressive warfare that killed millions.

A warning to those types -- we could live without you, thank you.

[pbrower2a]

The first paragraph has the answer.

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Poor people should move to where the jobs are.  And don't give me the BS line that people are too poor to move.

And where might those jobs be? Should the poor pack up and move to San Francisco?

Interesting article somewhere that the jobs are where the Interstates are. Being near major transportation nodes is where's it's at in general.

Lima is on Interstate 75, and it would be a reasonable point on a superhighway from Chicago to Columbus.

[pbrower2a]

It's still amazing to me how people in Ohio think that a quarter black population constitutes some sort of negro ghetto. A quarter black here is a mass affluent McMansion suburb.

People in Ohio (people in general actually) don't think about towns as "a quarter black." They think "there's way more black people than what I normally see" and connect that to run down, urban environments. I would hope most of them don't think one is a cause of the other, but they probably do.

I've only been through Lima a handful of times but it's similar to Toledo, where I grew up. NW Ohio is an unbelievably depressing place. But, like what Torie said (an excellent post by the way), your connections to family and friends can be an overwhelming force to keep you put. And isn't that kind of just fine?

dead0, Ohio is bleeding population like crazy. Texas is being overwhelmed with Midwesterners looking for work. The people who are not moving shouldn't be blamed for clinging to the lives they've already worked their asses off for just because they lost the arbitrary geography/prosperity lottery eventually (say that five times fast). Their kids will probably gtfo though. I got waay out, obviously, and my other siblings ended up in, well, Texas.

Immobility is one of the hallmarks of persistent poverty. People who can get out of depressed areas find a way to get out. Maybe they work two minimum-wage jobs that require a 20-mile commute each way, save every penny that they can, and make the move to where the jobs are.  That is a tough way to live, and one has to see two years of misery before something incrementally better. Extreme poverty culls out the competent and wrecks the marginal.

The people who stay get poorer and more helpless. They wait for a resurgence that may never come. So it is in much of coal country. The tax base erodes, and so does the infrastructure. The smart kid who attends Ohio State and gets a teaching credential may find more opportunities in Iowa than in Ohio. That may be one talented teacher that the Ohio community never gets. Roads deteriorate, schools deteriorate, drugs proliferate, criminal gangs flourish, and, well...

I have been to Toledo several times, and it in no way looks like Lima, which I have seen only once. Lima utterly creeps me out; it is basically Detroit with a 'whiter' population. I suspect that anyone who can get out of Lima for Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, or Columbus does so.

[pbrower2a]

Interesting to hear that comparison with Toledo. The last time I was there I had this feeling of despair, it felt so lifeless and hopeless, like everyone had given up. The only maintained buildings in the city were public. That Lima feels even worse...

I see few people except at such an attraction as the Museum of Art (which is a great one!)... and even the suburbs seem less than lively.

There is no new construction. The newest big building is the baseball stadium for the Detroit Tigers' AAA team. I haven't been there on a Sunday morning, so I don't know whether people are at least going to church. Toledo has become a fossil.