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Started to post this on the discussion thread on the Blade's story page, but I thought it might be better appreciated here: As someone who spends a lot of time in and around Midwestern cities, one of Toledo's biggest drawbacks that I see is the fact that it has few key assets downtown, while those that it does have are vastly underused. The Marina/riverfront for example. Also, as others have pointed out, the Art Museum and Zoo are nice, but they are randomly placed elsewhere in the city and don't really have a chance to create synergy with other institutions and points of interest. Even the new casino was placed seemingly on its own island, separate from anything else it might have worked with to generate greater energy and interest, such as the Mudhens' stadium downtown. Plus, most mid-sized cities also have these establishments in some form or another, so the benefit that Toledo derives from promoting these as its key attractions is marginal at best.It also doesn't help much that the University of Toledo is about as far removed from the core of the city as it can possibly be and still remain within the city limits. I often compare Toledo with Akron and Dayton in terms of size and similarity of economic predicament, but one area in which the latter two cities are far better off in than Toledo is proximity of institutions of higher education to their central business districts. Akron has the University of Akron, and Dayton has both the University of Dayton and Sinclair College connected to their downtowns. Akron's downtown in particular has benefited from a spillover economic effect from its university. Several new apartment complexes for students and young professionals have been built on Akron's Main Street downtown. Maybe Toledo's leadership could convince UT or Bowling Green to set up a branch campus downtown? It could at least be a starting point.More than anything, the above article is indicative of the fact that Toledo lacks a coherent sense of its identity and an appropriate economic development strategy to match it. During the Industrial Age, being the "Glass City" was all that mattered, but those days and the jobs and factories that were their hallmark, are gone. Toledo remains in many aspects the key satellite city of Detroit, another long troubled city that is also still trying to find itself in a new era and century. That relationship could suggest a starting point for Toledo's rebirth.
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Topic: Toledo: Restaurant News & Info (Read 5134 times)
