Talk Elections

i just passed through much of eastern ohio, the area along the ohio river.  i was amazed at the poverty in the area.  the area is really quite similar to southern wva.

has eastern ohio always been this impoverished?

I used to drive though this area occasionally when I went to school on the east coast.  The poverty there always shocked me also.. this was back in the late 1980's.  

Yep... the area is covered by the Appalachian Regional Commision (Northern region I think... may be central).

al, how diferent is eastern ohio from the rest of the state (economically and politically)

How does Al know about cities in our country when he lives in England?

I'd like to know that.

Eastern Ohio is very, very white and makes the Cleveland area look like a picture of economic prosperity (not only is unemployment a lot higher than state average the area is blighted by underemployment and disguised unemployment. Eastern Ohio is by far the poorest part of Ohio... although not technically as poor as Southern WV, the cost of living is higher as it's close to several large cities).

Most of Eastern Ohio is in the 6th CD (and has a populist Democrat congressman) although the part further away from the Ohio Valley is in the 18th CD (which has a protectionist GOP representative).

The area is competitive in Presidential elections (although it backed Bubba heavily, most of the counties in the area went narrowly for Bush in 2000, mainly due to Gore's views on coal and guns) generally the more mining that went on in a county, the more likely it is to go Democrat (oh, and Athens County which has a Uni in it).
It is almost certain to be the part of Ohio the Democrats target hardest in the Presidential election.

Map of Ohio's CD's:

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I look things up and remember them. I do this as a hobby (and possibly a job in a few years time)

i was in the 6th district.  i traveled highway 7 (which parrallels the ohio river) from across the bridge at wheeling west virginia all the way down to southeastern ohio where i crossed the river into huntington west va.

southeastern ohio looked slightly more prosperous than the east central area.  i also noticed that southeastern ohio seemed to have an agricultural based economy, whereas east central ohio had little in the way of farming.

to all the people who wonder why i asked al....sometimes i think it is better to get information from an outside expert.  if i asked someone who lived in ohio, their judgement would surely be biased in some way shape or form.  just take a look at josh's observations on north carolina.

Good observation... the South East part is politically different as well (as it never really industrialised it stuck with it's Civil War era GOP loyalities as opposed to East Central Ohio which headed Demward in the '30's) but it usually gets swamped by the more industrial counties upstream.


I'm sure Josh knows the politics of his precinct like the back of his hand... er... that's if he knows which his precinct *is*...

I've been to the area that is now OH-2 and OH-6, and it seemed very impoverished and socially conservative.

As for Northeastern Ohio, apparently it is also economically depressed but quite different from the rest of the state, in that it is socially moderate and economically VERY left-wing.