Why is there so little forum activity in Fort Wayne? (living in, cities)

[ischyros]

Originally Posted by CuriouserGeorge

Your duly noted!

Speaking as someone who wasn't aware that the forums were/are offshoots of relocation questions, I find it fascinating that demographic changes can be so easily tracked and that they are probably & broadly accurate.

I'll qualify my recent interest in Fort Wayne by saying I've never been there, and even Indiana. Nonetheless, based on information available on the internet, I think it has a lot going for it. I count a symphony, theatres, museums, sports teams of various flavors, outdoor recreational opportunities with biking/hiking/boating, multiple educational institutions, some significant regional and national history, a growing population, positive employment, ethnic diversity, affordable housing, an average crime index, a political dynamic that is opposite the state's, a nice airport, Amtrak nearby with high-speed rail possibly in the future, city transit, four-season weather, etc.

Having pointed out these things and expecting that a better city future is en route, I'll freely admit that it's not here yet. To use a cooking metaphor, it's like all the ingredients are on the table but the right proportions haven't quite been figured out: Do you need more salt, more sugar, less of one thing, too much of another, hotter oven, bigger skillet?...and so on. I suspect that there will be more than a bit of trial and error, but the desire to move forward is there and I'm optimistic that there are enough practical visionaries within the community that progress will be made. The quality-of-life fundamentals, as I said, are there already, and I'm in the process of trying to buy a particular property that I think will be worth every cent.

I grew up about 50 miles from Fort Wayne in a small town and I loved trips to Fort Wayne. When I ended up living there for a couple years as an adult, I still loved it and found so many things to do. But most of the people my age or younger that I met there, hated living there and couldn't want to leave. It could just be that's the way young people are as I've noticed it in Indianapolis as well. People in their teens and 20s seem to always think there's nothing to do even when there is a lot of things to do.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by CuriouserGeorge

I'll qualify my recent interest in Fort Wayne by saying I've never been there, and even Indiana. Nonetheless, based on information available on the internet, I think it has a lot going for it. I count a symphony, theatres, museums, sports teams of various flavors, outdoor recreational opportunities with biking/hiking/boating, multiple educational institutions, some significant regional and national history, a growing population, positive employment, ethnic diversity, affordable housing, an average crime index, a political dynamic that is opposite the state's, a nice airport, Amtrak nearby with high-speed rail possibly in the future, city transit, four-season weather, etc.

All that is true, yes. And for Baby Boomers, it was a great place to grow up, with most of the amenities of a big city, but without the congestion, crime etc. And it had plenty of jobs, manufacturing parts and accessories for Detroit auto makers... like Zollner Pistons, for example, that we were just discussing in another thread. They sponsored a pro basketball team that later became the Detroit Pistons, and the agreement to found the NBA was forged at Fred Zollner's kitchen table. And there were many others... Fruehoff Trailors, International Harvester Trucks, Tokheim and Wayne Gasoline pumps, Phelps-Dodge Copper Wire - strategically very important during WWII , GE Small Motors. I think they're all gone now. Rust Belt Blues.

And it had been that way for a long time... the very first electric streetlight system in the US were the famous "Moontowers" in Austin, Texas, built in the late 1800s by the Ft. Wayne Electric Company. There was an esteemed piano company... etc. There were lots and lots of jobs for years, so the town was prosperous. And the Nickle Plate Railroad, with the Broadway Limited, that you could get on in the afternoon in Ft. Wayne and arrive early morning in New York City. The station was down the block from the main Post Office, which was across the street from The Lincoln National Life Insurance Co, now gone, moved to Ohio as I recall. Bun Bars candy bars. And Peter Eckrich Meats, now a national brand and HQd in Cincinatti, I think.

Offhand the only large company I can think of that was there 50 years ago and is still there is Central Soya. Oh, and North American Van Lines. Sweetwater Sound is the only internet based retailer I can think of that has a major presence. Steel Dynamics is the only Fortune 500 company

Even the great beers of the past are gone. Ft. Wayne was a big brewery town, because of the ready supply of water from the "three rivers." I think the first brewery was established in the 1860s, and in the 20th century Berghoff, Falstaff, Centlivre, Old Crown, Hof-Brau and others were well known brands in the region. But all succumbed to the brewery mergers of the 50s and 60s.

So the city has been in a slump for years, with some ripples upward and some downward, but mostly just hanging on. But there are all kinds of local gems, and points of interest, like the genealogical collection of the Allen County Historical Society, one of the premier sites in the country. When the 1940 census records were released to the public they were extremely hard to work with because there was no index. Allen County Historical Society volunteers were among the first in the country to put their indexing online, and I was able to use it from halfway around the world to solve a few mysteries with my family tree.

So to sum it up, the cultural amenities are top shelf, worthy of a much larger city. If you have a good job when you move to Ft Wayne you can have a very pleasant life, as long as you can handle a pretty brutal winter, but if you need a good job I don't think it is such a swell place to be these days. [/quote]

I suspect that there will be more than a bit of trial and error, but the desire to move forward is there and I'm optimistic that there are enough practical visionaries within the community that progress will be made. The quality-of-life fundamentals, as I said, are there already, and I'm in the process of trying to buy a particular property that I think will be worth every cent.

I think you're on the right track.

[Allergyvictim]

Fort Wayne people are very family oriented people and local, when I moved from Chicago, I met people who spent most of their lives in Ft Wayne, they were in their 30s and never been to Chicago which is 3 hours away, I met women who are not even 20 years old and have 2 kids ,so people are really into their personal lives and their circle of interest is limited to few things in life, which include work, kids, family,and pets ;this is different when you go to big cities where circle of interest is larger .

[BU191433]

Originally Posted by indy771

I agree, Fort Wayne for its size has not a lot of going on compared to cities of similar size or smaller cities like you mentioned such as Bloomington or Lafayette.

Maybe, if there was a large university not even the size of IU or Purdue but universities like Ball State or possibly Indiana State, it would shed more lights on the city.

But overall, its an very average city, passed through it once while traveling to Detroit and it didn't once go back. Evansville is slightly smaller than Fort Wayne but seems has more going on.

My suggestion would be to have Bloomington its own forum and take down Fort Wayne, since no one is posting here.

wow, you picked all that up by passing through one day.

[Allergyvictim]

Originally Posted by BU191433

wow, you picked all that up by passing through one day.

[belovenow]

The sub forum is fine, the city is fine - there used to be an active moderator who would herself start a lot of the threads in here. That's all that is needed - someone to start new threads and to respond to ones started by others. Activity will beget activity. Rather than puzzling about things and re-opening this rather morose thread; start a new one posing a question you want the answer to... that would be a start.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by indy771

I agree, Fort Wayne for its size has not a lot of going on compared to cities of similar size or smaller cities like you mentioned such as Bloomington or Lafayette.

Maybe, if there was a large university not even the size of IU or Purdue but universities like Ball State or possibly Indiana State, it would shed more lights on the city.

I'm a stickler for accuracy in these matters...

IU-Purdue Ft.Wayne, establish 1964, is the largest University in Northeastern Indiana, and 5th largest in the state. Campus is 688 acres with 40 buildings and structures and 2,668,078 square feet of building space.

IPFW by the Numbers - About - IPFW

But overall, its an very average city, passed through it once while traveling to Detroit and it didn't once go back. Evansville is slightly smaller than Fort Wayne but seems has more going on.

In my experoience drive-by judgments like that are seldom accurate. In fact Ft.Wayne is over twice the size of Evansville. 256,496 vs 120,310. Qualitatively, I don't know what you expected to learn "passing through" on the way to someplace else.

[quote]

My suggestion would be to have Bloomington its own forum and take down Fort Wayne, since no one is posting here.

If you check, nobody is posting much about Bloomington. I think Bloomington is so different from Indy that it deserves its own forum, but the way it works is that you have to have the traffic first to demonstrate the need.

And Ft. Wayne is too far from any other major city to be included anywhere else.

[ischyros]

Originally Posted by OpenD

In my experoience drive-by judgments like that are seldom accurate. In fact Ft.Wayne is over twice the size of Evansville. 256,496 vs 120,310. Qualitatively, I don't know what you expected to learn "passing through" on the way to someplace else.

Not to mention he said passing through on his way to Detroit, which likely means just cruising through on I-69.

[WesKonsin]

I just relocated to FW myself. My wife has family here and got a job offer she would have never received back home so after almost 40 years of living in the place I was born we decide on a change of scenery.

We had always wanted to try Chicago but then we had a baby and the jobs she was finding in Chicago wanted kids just out of school aka 'cheap'. She was having a hard time finding a job that would allow us to live in a city neighborhood. We didn't really like the idea of living in a burb and having to use metra every day for work. We wanted to live IN Chicago. Not just closer. Plus my ambitions as a photog would have been better served in Chicago vs say a Naperville.

I still hope to make it to Chicago one day. Maybe when my daughter finishes high school in 15 years. For now I'm just trying to figure out what exactly I've got in Fort Wayne.

I will try to be very active here. I like interacting on forums like this. I am a photographer so expect a lot of photographs. Shooting the city will be a fun way to learn where everything is.

I would love to meet up with other recent relocators as maybe we can figure this place out together.

[belovenow]

Weskonsin welcome to Fort Wayne. What you have here is your wife's family and typical offerings of a mid sized city. I encourage you to find your own location-independent joy here despite being far from where you were born and raised. It's doable. People here are nice and Fort Wayne has come a long way in 14 years. If thing s stay on track I believe this city can become much more than it is today.