"Only in Toledo"? Hardly: How Negativity Is Hurting Our City

By Dan Louks | August 5, 2026

Something that routinely makes me want to pull my hair out (if I weren't already bald) is when I see articles about some unfortunate crime or tragic event that took place in Toledo, and then I make the grave mistake of opening the comment section. That’s when I see it. A phrase written over and over again:

“Only in Toledo…”

I practically pull a muscle from how hard I roll my eyes because of how cliché and tired that trope has become. The only time it would be applicable is if there were a headline that read, “Man Wearing Mud Hens Jersey Driving Jeep Wrong Way on I-475 Eating Tony Packo’s Hot Dog While Listening to Q105 Arrested by TPD.” And may we never forget the legendary “cheeseburger stabbing” that actually did happen and still makes its rounds on social media 16 years later.

Here's the reality: Stupid exists everywhere. Crime exists everywhere. Red states, blue states, doesn’t matter. If you’re in a place where there are people, it’s going to happen. And cities with higher populations, like Toledo, are sure to have more crime than rural areas because more people equals more interactions between strangers, more traffic, and more shared spaces. Yes, of course, our crime rates are higher than any of us would like them to be. I’ll be first in line to admit that. But there have been some promising data trends over the past few years that suggest we’re at least making progress. When comparing 2025 with 2024, robberies were down 26%, thefts from vehicles were down 23%, burglaries were down 10%, and people shot were down 15%. And when you look at the mid-year 2026 crime statistics, we saw decreases in homicides, robberies, and thefts from motor vehicles. We still have a long way to go to get our city in a better position from a public safety perspective, but strides are being made nonetheless.

“What we believe to be true becomes true.” — Brian Tracy

I strongly believe that negative comments about Toledo have become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. If you're constantly saying that Toledo is a dump, mocking people who are actually trying to improve the city, and treating every positive story with cynicism, you're just creating that narrative for yourself. I frequently see people online celebrating the city’s failures rather than our successes and creating an atmosphere where people feel embarrassed to say they're from Toledo. And if you have no sense of pride in your city, then of course you’re going to throw your trash on the ground or vandalize our parks and playgrounds. Guess what? You’re just making our city worse, which only continues the toxic cycle.

Not happy with the way things are? Do something about it.

It tends to be the people doing the least who complain the most about the state of our city. What do you think the odds are that the people spreading all this negativity are attending city council meetings, participating in neighborhood watches, or volunteering their time at local homeless or animal shelters? Hell, they’re very likely not even voting in our local elections, but God knows they’ll always be first in line to tell you that the mayor’s not doing enough. SHOW UP AND DO SOMETHING! It sounds corny, but be the change you want to see. Nothing’s going to change unless we put forth the effort ourselves.

There's lots about Toledo that doesn't suck.

The people saying that Toledo sucks are the same people who spend all of their time either at home or shopping at Walmart. Whether they want to admit it or not, we actually have tons to offer here, regardless of what you’re into. Here’s an admittedly incomplete but decent list of just some of the things we have at our disposal here in Toledo: