Continuing conversation about Frontline
Here are some more comments from Facebook about last week’s Frontline “Left Behind America” report about Dayton on PBS.
Billy Pote: My message to all of my Daytonian friends upset over how a recent documentary portrayed our city: Who cares?
Nobody outside of Dayton cares about Dayton. So why do you care what they think?
Do you like living here? Great, keep liking it.
Are you able to live the life you want to live here? Great, keep living it.
I didn’t watch the documentary in question but I don’t have to. I know what it’s about. And the painful truth is — most of this city
is suffering. From poverty, crime, drug addiction — just like every other urban city in
America. Believe me when I tell you that the problems in the “more desirable” bigger cities are just that much bigger.
It’s a problem that deserves attention, even if that attention goes against the growing urban utopia you would rather view your city as. You don’t have to watch a documentary — simply drive outside of Downtown Dayton in
any direction (OK, maybe not south) and you will see firsthand what that documentary presumably portrays accurately.
Instead of complaining about how unfair that portrayal is, try recognizing the reality. If you don’t like that reality, do something to help change it. Make a donation. Donate your time. Something. Even if you start by simply recognizing the issues instead of pretending they don’t exist.
And stop worrying about what the rest of the country thinks about Dayton. Trust me — they are not thinking about Dayton at all. And that’s perfectly OK.
Randy Hollon: Hit piece? ... As much wounded pride as I have for my hometown, all it did was paint an accurate picture.
Jon Jones: Omg everyone chill out about your precious city. It wasn’t a hit piece. It wasn’t a documentary about everything there is about Dayton. It’s a documentary about the decline of Rust Belt cities.
Chelsea Masden: It is shining light on segments of area that good paying jobs are not returning for. New development is priced way to high for them.
When you can’t afford the low-priced, run-down place you have now, new housing is totally unhelpful. Without jobs that do not require college education returning, a whole group of people will not recover. Without working-class jobs, all the downtown buildup is just gentrification benefiting the well to do.
David Witt: The bottom line is that if you go fishing for garbage, then garbage is all you will find. They had no intention of shining a positive light.
Daniel Chord: Why focus on the heroin when we have L.E.D.s on a bridge?
John Allen: I always make it a point to at least drive through town, even if I don’t have time to properly visit, when I’m in the area. It’s not a development frenzy like Columbus, but I always see something new when I visit Dayton, and it’s a far cry from how rough it was 10-15 years ago.
Manda Austin: The fact of the matter is Dayton is a segregated city. Downtown is only a small part of the city and on its way to be overwhelmingly white and upper middle class. Do you think a mother on the west side — who works several jobs and has to take two busses to acquire fresh produce — cares about $500,000 condos and this season’s shows at Victoria? This was a complete picture of Dayton and shame on the privileged whites who whine ‘but what about Riverscape’ while 35 percent of the city lives in poverty. Qu’ils mangent de la brioche, indeed.