First time I saw it, I thought it was odd. Now, I’m just laughing as the Dayton Daily News continues to show how out of touch it is.
We no longer have suburbs of Dayton- they are now Montgomery County cities:
WEST CARROLLTON — A vapor leak is getting the early blame for an explosion that rocked the Veolia Environmental Services plant in this Montgomery County city early Monday, May 4,
Of course, people have joked about the DDN printing plant in Warren County ever since it opened, but in terms of informing the public, this new style change is confusing.
Ask anyone outside Ohio where Montgomery County, Ohio, is- and they’ll have no clue. In fact, there are only a few counties nationwide that people may know: Dade in Florida, Orange in California- am I missing any others?
It’s bad enough that we have to suffer the term “Miami Valley” which most people think has something to do with Florida (one of the reasons RTA ditched it from their moniker), and that we insist on using the term “greater Dayton” to refer to the Greater Metropolitan Area- when Dayton is fine and does the job- as if there is also a “lesser Dayton.”
If we want pride back in out city, and to re-establish our community as a powerful cog in the global economy, let’s get the first thing straight: we’re all from Dayton, and if we were smart, we’d ditch all our ‘burbs with their mom-n-pop councils and have one, strong, regional government (UniGov) that gets the big picture.
Bill Pote at Dayton Most Metro just tweeted [2] this:
If Montgomery County consolidated into one city, it would be the second largest city in Ohio and 32nd largest in the country
That’s the kind of thinking we need. We shouldn’t expect much from the Mont/Warren County Daily News.
How about calling the Montgomery County + Dayton region = “MonDay” ? O, but how we dread Mondays.
FWIW
Montgomery County: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas,Virginia.
Hey, I’m the geography guy…
Personally, I’ve never been bothered by the Miami Valley moniker. If you are marketing to folks IN the Miami Valley, then we all know where it is. Who cares if ignorant people only think of Miami, FL. However, if you are marketing the region to the rest of the country (for development or, snicker, tourism) then yes, emphasis should be placed on Dayton or Greater Dayton. When you use the phrase Miami Valley, you can mean folks in the surrounding counties.
West Carrollton hardly qualifies as a city anyway. I don’t think the DDN staff can write their way out of a paper bag.
How about calling the Montgomery County + Dayton region = “MonDay”
After the next census we are all going to be “CinDay” since the census (really the OMB) will be merging us into the Cincinnati metro area (for statistical purposes).
In 19th century booster-talk: “The Queen City will recieve a bright new Gem in her tiara, the Gem City”.
And perhaps the Enquirer will have a “North Metro” edition for Montgomery County?
Napa County, home of Napa Valley and Cook County, Chicago are two other famous counties.