COLUMBUS, Ohio — The national economy continues to hum right along, riding a nine-year wave of recovery from the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. Unemployment is low and confidence is high among consumers.

But inside the numbers, the U.S. economy is still churning out both winners and losers. New economy jobs, such as those in tech and creative fields, offer a path toward higher incomes and more opportunities. While manufacturing jobs, even as they’ve increased in the last few years, still make up a far smaller part of the U.S. workforce than they did just two decades ago and are not the wealth creators they once were.

While much is made of the country’s regional urban-suburban differences, the divide between the old and new economy is changing the country as well.

Two Ohio cities, Columbus and Dayton, sit just 70 miles apart but are stark examples of what that growing divide looks like.

Columbus, home of the state capital and Ohio State University, is riding a knowledge economy into prosperity. Buildings are going up and being renovated as new businesses arrive chasing a growing population.

Just an hour west, Dayton is trying to shake the rust off its manufacturing roots and find a place in the new world. Blocks of downtown Dayton are empty and local leaders are working and wondering how to refill them.

Where those cities stand today and where they seem to be heading is remaking a crucial part of the American political landscape.

Columbus: College Grads and Building Cranes

Driving through the streets of Columbus, the words “Rust Belt” feel far away. The skyline is dotted with building cranes where offices, apartments and mixed-use structures are rising and where old edifices are being repurposed and rebuilt.

Away from downtown, on North 4th Street, Kevin Lykens is converting the red-brick Budd Dairy Building into a 14,000-square-foot food hall. The owner of Lykens Companies, he says the building already has 70 restaurants that have applied to move into the space. And he’s not worried about foot traffic to support them — the refurbished space will be only steps from the Columbus’s Short North hipster enclave, where he also has apartment buildings.