Rankings

There have been a bunch of rankings recently and Toledo did not fair too well. Here is the rundown:

Gallup ranks Toledo as one of the lower cities in well being in Ohio, and in the country.

Within Ohio itself, people in Cleveland and Akron rank their lives worse off than those in Columbus and Cincinnati, but much better than those in Canton, Toledo or Youngstown. Overall, Cleveland ranks 146th out of 185 American cities, with Akron 147th.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/02/work_stinks_but_life_is_lookin.html
Learn more at:
http://www.well-beingindex.com/

What do you think? Is this self-justification or maybe statistics and lies or is it reality?
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For one in five Columbus-area households, the economic decline is making for bare cupboards.

A report released today by the Food Research and Action Center found that 20 percent of households in the metro area faced "food hardship" in 2008 and 2009.

That means families answered "yes" when Gallup surveyers asked whether there were times in the past year when they did not have enough money to buy needed food.

Another ranking politicians will want to ignore.
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Last place in the small-business-vitality rankings again belongs to Detroit, which continues to pay the price for the decline of the domestic automotive industry. The Detroit area lost 298,000 jobs during the past five years—an employment decline of 16.3 percent, easily the worst in any metro. It also experienced short-term drops in population and the number of small businesses.

Joining Detroit in the bottom five, in descending order, are Youngstown, Dayton, and Toledo, Ohio, and Milwaukee.

Toledo is down, but not as much as other areas of Ohio. Bizjournals has the rest.
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Ohio statewide lost 11 percent of its construction jobs, or 22,200 over the 12-month period. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor had the biggest Ohio loss, at 22 percent, ranking it at 318. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman was down 11 percent, ranking at 167; Canton-Massilon, Dayton and Lima each lost 10 percent, tying at 143; Toledo was down 9 percent, ranking at 121; and Akron lost 8 percent, at 98th.

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2010/01/04/daily7.html

A decent independent ranking for the area.
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This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s social health—the literacy of its major cities (population of 250,000 and above). This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

Toledo Metro Area bests all other major Ohio cities according to Forbes-32 overall.
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The complete stats can be found at:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/cities-affordable-cheap-lifestyle-real-...

Hmmm...Toodledoo placed 64th of nearly 400 cities in the FBI City Crime Rankings for 2008...I would attach the PDF if things were working right...But things are not working real well out here in "corn country" tonite...Check out Fox News for the article, or this link... http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/citycrime2008_rank_rev.pdf ...hope i got that part right...

"How has North Carolina managed to rank No. 1 in Site Selection’s annual business climate rankings eight times in the past nine years? It may have something to do with its infrastructure of higher learning."

Ohio 4th

http://www.siteselection.com/portal/index.shtml

Bizjournals is reporting the latest Milken Institute rankings of tech jobs and Toledo rounds up the pack at 198 out of 200, only followed by Detroit and Flint. How depressing.
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No other major Ohio city finished higher than Columbus, though Cincinnati (138), Dayton (183) and Akron (186) all moved up the list compared with last year. The lowest-ranked Ohio city in the Milken report was Toledo, which finished 198th – just ahead of Detroit and Flint, Mich.

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2009/11/09/daily23.html

Bizjournals, citing the recently released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is reporting that Toledo unemployment has dropped 1%.
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Akron’s unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent from 10.2 percent, while others stayed in the double digits, including Dayton, at 10.7 percent, down from 11.5 percent, and Toledo, at 11.1 percent, down from 12.1 percent.

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/10/26/daily35....

As referenced in the previous post, Toledo did not fare well in the recent Bizjournal/Portfolio.com's job analysis. From 2008-2009 Toledo dropped from 97th to 99th place. What city was 100? Detroit.

The sobering facts which you won't see on Toledo letterhead:
Private Sector Job Growth 04-09: -6.7%
Private Sector Job Growth 08-09: -8.5%
Raw growth in private sector jobs (04-09): -31,900
Raw growth in private sector jobs (08-09): -23,400
Unemployment rate: 14.2%

Congratulations leaders of Toledo, who happen to be almost all Democratic, this ranking is for you. You know it is bad when the Dems say they need change and then campaign on it-what an indictment of their own leadership style. But watch, they say they want change, then continue to do the same idiotic stuff. This will eventually catch up with them and for Toledo's sake, let's hope soon. So think about this the next rain garden that is created, the next flower planted, and what ever else these "leaders" say to distract you from there own accountability and lousy performance.

From Bizjournals:

Cincinnati has the most manufacturing jobs of any city in the state at 83,343 – but that’s down 14 percent over the past two years. Cleveland has 64,775 jobs, down 13.5 percent; Columbus has 47,200, down 3.1 percent; Dayton has 27,114, down 28 percent; and Toledo has 23,445, down 5 percent.

BizJournals puts Toledo 4 from the bottom in income growth. They note that only Provo, Utah, and Detroit have posted five-year growth rates slower than Toledo’s 13.7 percent. For more information, methodology and other city rankings, visit:

http://www.bizjournals.com/edit_special/91.html

Summary:
a. Rank = 96
b. Metropolitan area = Toledo, Ohio
c. Income growth index = -33.52
d. Per capita income (2008) = $33,856
e. 25-year income growth rate (1983-2008) = 168.0%
f. 20-year income growth rate (1988-2008) = 98.6%
g. 15-year income growth rate (1993-2008) = 59.3%

Brookings Institute labeled Toledo's economy as "dismal" in the Great Lakes Monitor which was released last week.

Toledo did not rank well in the Children's Health Magazine's ranking of best places to raise children. Toledo ended up trailing the pack in the national survey.
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Toledo ranks low on congestion.
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Among other Ohio communities, the prime-time commuting congestion was thickest in Cincinnati (30th), followed by Cleveland (31st), Akron (68th), Dayton (69th) and Toledo (93rd), according to the report, which was released this week.

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2009/08/31/daily31.html

Major Food Clients Contribute to SSOE's Ranking
TOLEDO, Ohio -- Engineering News Record, one of the industry's primary news publications, ranked SSOE (www.ssoe.com) number four among the top ten food processing firms in the United States. The new ranking reflects an increase of two spots over the 2008 numbers. "We attribute this increase to our client focused philosophy," said Vince DiPofi, who leads SSOE's food group. SSOE has completed more than 500 food-related projects throughout the last five years.

National Association of Realtors released the numbers for 2009 quarter 1 and the median Toledo house price was $65,500. One year ago it was $89,700. Over the past three years the median value has dropped from $110k in 2006, to $106.6k in 2007, and $91.2k in 2008. This is bad news for Toledo home owners and let us not forget who brought us here. Read the press release and get the numbers below.
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According to Blue Rhino, Toledo is #30 in the country for cookouts. Leads all other Ohio cities. This may not be of much consolation to those who don't have a job.
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Los Angeles Tops the Charts as the Country’s #1 ‘Cookout Capital’

Blue Rhino Announces Annual List of Ideal Grilling Cities

Travel & Leisure II, Summer Outdoors
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blue Rhino, the leading brand of propane tank exchange, announces the ideal cities to grill in with the top 100 Cookout Capitals for 2009. This year, the nation's top Cookout Capital is Los Angeles.

Bizjournals today released its analysis of economies and job losses and Toledo is #3 behind Dayton and Detroit.
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Dayton’s streak is by far the worst in the nation, according to a bizjournals analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. No other U.S. market has amassed a losing streak of more than 13 quarters, and only five markets besides Dayton have been declining for more than eight straight quarters.