Unlike many cities, which have the standard east/west wealth divide, Dayton's favored quarter is due south of downtown. The reason for this southern migration of wealth can be contributed directly to a single event - the catastrophic flood of 1913.
For Dayton's early history, wealthy homes were primarily built directly west of downtown, between Perry Street and the sweeping bend in the Great Miami River. Many of the grandest mansions lined Robert Boulevard, which sat on top of one of the city's levees. Development west of the river was still fairly minimal in the early 20th century, although some wealthy families had begun to build homes on the slope northwest of downtown, in the neighborhoods of Grafton Hill, Five Oaks and Dayton View.
The south of downtown was even more scarcely developed, being on the opposite side of the massive National Cash Register factory and up a fairly steep slope. A streetcar ran to the southern hills, but it was fairly lightly used. The general pattern of "west = wealthy" held up until 1913, when the flood destroyed much of the downtown area. Most of those homes were divided into flophouses and apartments and the neighborhood was almost entirely razed during a series of urban renewal projects in the 60s and 70s. Only two homes remain.
Obviously, after having their homes and possessions ruined by the floodwaters, Dayton's elites began to decamp the old neighborhood west of downtown. Although many moved northwest along Salem Avenue to the aforementioned neighborhood, there was an even more magnetic pull toward the south thanks to the lobbying of Dayton's most powerful citizen, NCR president John H Patterson. John had built his estate, "Far Hills", in the then-sleepy backwater village of Oakwood at the top of the southern hill. After the flood, however, Oakwood's elevated location became a selling point, and Patterson was able to lure his managers and engineers up the hill to live near him. Patterson was a notoriously controlling boss and he liked to keep his underlings close-at-hand, even at home. Patterson's legacy on the city was so great that the main road through the city was named Far Hills Avenue after his house and the city's southernmost border parallels Dorothy Lane, which was named after his daughter. Oakwood received some additional cache when Dayton's most famous son, Orville Wright, build his house "Hawthorne Hill" on a prominent rise in the middle of the quickly-expanding city.
So what happened to that other wealthy pocket along Salem Avenue, to the northwest? Its neighborhoods were also elevated, which initially led to significant population growth in that direction. It eventually would become the heart of Dayton's Jewish community, because the new city of Oakwood to the south had racial covenants in place that forbade Jews from buying homes there. Those same covenants also prevented Blacks from purchasing in the area, and as was the case in many other rust belt cities, African Americans began moving into the Jewish areas after WWII. The Jewish community somewhat ironically shifted to Oakwood, where it remains to this day. The neighborhoods of the Salem corridor have suffered many injustices over the past 50+ years, particularly at the height of the crack epidemic in the 80s. But the area is significantly safer today and various stakeholders are working to try and revitalize the neighborhood and some of its stately homes. Unfortunately, the most architecturally significant home in the neighborhood, the Traxler Mansion, was recently lost to arson.