by Dominick Paul Cerrone with Casey Hayes
In Wheeling Magazine
August 15, 2008
In 1987, when Money magazine ranked Wheeling as the nation's third best city to live in, Joelle, Angela, Jason, Justin, and Carter were still small kids playing at Oglebay Park, taking art lessons at the Stifel, and eating Coleman's fish sandwiches and DiCarlo's pizza.
Although the quality of life extolled by Money magazine still exists in the city today, the magazine has since moved on to other cities to keep its pages fresh, and these five eventually left Wheeling to live in other cities for both school and work. However, they have come back full cycle to Wheeling for some of the very reasons why the city was among the very first to make an impression on Money magazine.
These five "come back kids" represent an emerging trend of young professionals, both native and from out of the area, who are placing quality of life over all other factors and are arriving at the same conclusions that Money magazine first made over twenty years ago. They are part of what sociologist Richard Florida calls the "creative class," a group which is much more interested in where they live and what freedoms they have than which corporation they work for.
"Wheeling is transitioning from an industrial based economy to a creative class economy with noticeable changes," says Joelle Ennis who moved back from Columbus with her husband in 2007 to work as the marketing and communications specialist at the City of Wheeling. She also started sOmething eVentful, an events planning company. "The creative energy is contagious here," noted Ennis. She felt Columbus lacked "pride of personality" that is palpable in Wheeling.
"We have so much here," says Angela Zambito. "This is a good vibe in the city right now." Zambito moved back to Wheeling from the head and humidity of Wilmington, North Carolina, after studying in France among other places. She took a job as Assistant Development Director of Catholic Charities West Virginia, part of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.
For Angela, Wheeling's charm is its biggest asset to attract more of those young people who value where they live and the "pride of personality" that Joelle mentions over anything else.
Wheeling's small city environment with large city amenities like its extensive arts and recreational infrastructure drew Carter Kenamond and Jason Koegler back to their hometown. After his fellowship in neuroradiology at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Kenamond returned to Wheeling with his wife to raise a family, not only for the excellent public schools and park system, but also for its "nationally recognized healthcare" and the "occasional snow fall in the winters" and milk summers which rarely occurred down south.
Koegler and his wife moved back from the San Francisco Bay area. He had worked up the ladder from baking to marketing at the famous Boudin Bakery. They moved back to avoid the pitfalls of metroopolitan life--traffic and the cost of living.
"People will smile and open doors for you here," says Koegler, who believes San Francisco lacked the sense of community that is so strong in Wheeling.
Quality of life is what attracts other young entrepreneurs seeking to start up in business to Wheeling. With prime office space as low as ten percent of the cost of larger metropolitan areas, and an advances high capacity telecommunication infrastructure, Wheeling is capable of attracting more of the creative class.
Justin Seibert relocated back to Wheeling with his wife and children from Los Angeles.
"The biggest business potential for Wheeling exists in both our back office operations and entrepreneurial outfits where owners choose to stay or move to the area for quality of life reasons," says Justin. He moved his company, Direct Online Marketing from Los Angeles to Wheeling to take advantage of this and the solid family environment. "We have already seen good quality companies in both categories set up shop here. More career opportunities exist than one thinks or that typically get reported."
Stopping by at any of the events of OV Connect, a young professional group which Seibert is president of, is a testament to this. The gathering of well-dressed, upwardly mobile professionals is stereotypical of larger metropolitan areas, and sometimes well over a hundred young professionals from the community mingle with each other to talk shop and enjoy leisure time.
"More young folk already lived here than I imagined," said Seibert.
If the national trend continues, and the city's population loss continues to level off as it has been for a decade, even more could be coming Wheeling's way.
The above article originally appeared in its entirety in the print version of In Wheeling Magazine. |
