Santa Claus parade

Oh yes I remember it well….those good old days
Half the population of Middletown worked for the steel or paper industries.
Most families only had one car which the men used to get to work.
Many areas of Middletown increased and grew under the smoke stacks of these industries because the men could walk to work. It was affordable housing for these working class families.
If the women needed anything during the day they could walk to the corner grocery store or get on the bus and ride to downtown Middletown to shop and pay the bills.
Men would gather together listening to the Reds ballgame on the radio at the local bars or in their backyards with a tub filled with ice cold beers.

In the summer the streets and parks were filled with kids playing games and on really hot days the three pools in Middletown were filled with screaming kiddies. We would leave home in the morning after we did our chores and our parents didn’t see us again until dinner time or until the street lights came on. Kids walked everywhere and to school every day no matter what the weather.
Then came air conditioning and a TV in every living room. Kids couldn’t wait to get out of school to go home and watch Dick Clark on The American Bandstand. But the entire family was gatherer around the one TV in the house watching the same shows in the evening..
As wealth increased so did the TV’s until every child had to have their very own TV in their bedroom. Hmm.. The only thing I did in my bedroom was read a book or sleep.
And then came the era of computers and everything really changed.
People are not outside anymore because they fear pollution…people are not outside because they can’t disconnect from their online world….oops correction…then we invented Smart Phones, so now I have to listen to your phone conversation to your husband or wife and children whether I want to or not.
Now you don’t have to talk to your teenage children anymore…you can just text them...Hmmm…maybe that’s a good thing after all…

Trotwood, you are concerned about pollution? Do you know what goes into making all the chips that run all of these devices that you just can’t live without?
Pollution is not Middletown’s big problem
Middletown is know for...Reputation….Schools…Crime…Poverty…

Trotwood, have you seen this latest video?

Channel 9 News video

Middletown known for high crime and low job growth
https://www.facebook.com/middletownusa

Vet

Old saying…you do not plant a tree for yourself but for your grandchildren to enjoy.

City Hall planted our current problems many years ago and added to them over the years because they did not use our tax dollars wisely by reinvesting in the entire city and its future needs. Time and time again they raided funds to cover the cost and loses of their failed plans from the public. And yes the tremendous increase in Section 8 Housing within a five year period was one of those failed plans however it was City Hall’s administration of this program that was a major factor in this failure imo.

So now the question is how does City Hall and the citizens like the plans that were planted 30 years ago?

Trotwood said:

I hear a lot about steps 1, 2, and 3 but never about step 4 - the step where things get fixed.

There are ways, as a community, to get things fixed. 

As noted earlier in this thread, this forum is an excellent avenue to make change happen. It gets a lot of traffic. 

With that traffic, maybe some action could be motivated. Like with Weatherwax was on the chopping block, I saw encouragement from John Beagle to go golfing there, but I never saw a "Middletown USA Golf meet-up to save Weatherwax", for instance.

Ms. Moon, you as well take action by getting council minutes and posting them on here, which does make a difference in who is truly informed. But to get stuff done, why not take it as far as you can until you start to see results?

Dear Trotwwood, I have been protesting for years, probably long before you were even born. I have painted enough signs to fill a small house and walked hundreds of miles getting signatures on petitions for various causes at local, county, state and national levels over the years. I have taken many of the issues that I have posted about on this blog to the next level and also helped others with the needed research to win their battles against City Hall. I want those that read this blog to have the facts and be well informed about how City Hall is spending their tax dollars.  

STEP 4…Most of the time Step 4 is to stop City Hall from doing something dumb rather than fixing something, sorry to say.

Even if you all threw around a hey let's protest ________ at ________ time because ________, that'd be cool. Send your message by being present in the right place. It's easy to ignore one, harder to ignore 10, near impossible to ignore 100. Heck, if you threw a protest against wasting money on demolitions, I'd even show up! Complaining on here quasi-anonymously does only so much good. Especially when those whom you are complaining about might not be very receptive to criticism.
STEP 4….Do you remember Mr. Laubach requesting that the Street Fund be reinstated with about a million dollars a year set aside in the budget to make Middletown a better community and City Council voted it down. This should have been a majority yes vote imo.  

You really don’t what me to start a discussion on the great demolition plan in Middletown…more on this later…still working on the research.

Ahhh, Trotwood, how I love the minds of young people.
    I wish we had hours to sit and discuss the history of Middletown and Urban Planning but we don’t.
    Over the years I have seen hundreds of plans for “Designer Neighborhood”. Many of these early perfect neighborhoods were designed and or built by the very wealthy of heavy industry high on the hill overlooking their companies and where their employees lived. Some were truly company towns, entire communities built by the company around the factories for their employees.  
    Everyone wants to live in one of these perfect neighborhoods as long as that nasty factory or the city dump is not in their backyard. Remember that even Rome had its yuppie neighborhoods.
    So Trotwood as you can see the class system is still alive and well.
    If the current businesses in downtown want locals to support their businesses then they must offer what the community wants to purchase at a price they are willing to pay…it’s just that plain and simple.   

    

Processor
You hit the nail on the head but I think you also need to add our school system to this list.