Dublin, Ohio vs. Huntington, W.Va.

According to an article in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch, efforts by the city of Dublin, Ohio, to land good new jobs is paying off.

The gist of the story: Dublin may soon be home to the nation's first particle-therapy cancer center. In addition to that, OhioHealth will open its $150 million Dublin Methodist Hospital next month, Nationwide Children's Hospital opened a medical office building next to its Close to Home Center in 2004 and construction of the $300 million particle-therapy center could start next spring.

So Dublin's getting all that and KineticPark has a doctor's office. Knowing that it takes money to make money, I decided to compare the two cities. I knew Dublin was affluent, but the numbers show something.

Population
Huntington: 51,529
Dublin: 31,478

Metro area population
Huntington (Huntington-Ashland): 315,538
Dublin (Columbus): 1,540,157

Median household income, 1999
Huntington: $23,234
Dublin: $91,162, or about 3.92 times that of Huntington

Pct people age 25+ with at least a bachelor's degree
Huntington: 22.4
Dublin: 64.7

Number of owner-occupied households paying $10,000 a year or more in real estate taxes
Huntington: 18
Dublin: 198

Number of owner-occupied households paying no real estate taxes
Huntington: 158
Dublin: 0

Yes, it takes money to make money. Money flows to money. And here in Huntington, we don't gotta lotta money.

We can talk all we want about biotechnology and attracting new jobs. We need more than wide, tree-lined streets and a church on every corner. We need more than a few new programs at Marshall. What we need is a community that is attractive to people with money to invest. There is a reason companies in the old economy invested heavily in this area a few generations ago, and there are reasons that companies in the new economy aren't doing that today.

The sad truth is that it will take a generation or two to turn this around. That assumes we can do that.