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I grew up in Indiana, and I hated that no one there seemed to want to grow and better the place. Which I always loved because of it's natural beauty. So my question is, Do people WANT change in Indiana? And if so what would you change?
It depends what kind of change you are referring to. Please elaborate. The city has changed in many ways (ie population growth, new projects etc.) since I moved here in the late 90's.
I have lived between Indianapolis and the East Coast most of my life. I lived here in the 80s when it was India-NO-Place, then again in the Mid-90's when it actually started to become more like a city with the advent of Circle Center and the expansion of convention tourism, and then again came back and settled in the early 00's when Lucas Oil was built and Downtown actually started to be a little dirty and a place where panhandlers could actually make a "living." So it has changed, but I will try to acknowledge the feeling I have felt that I believe the OP is getting at (because it sounds like the feelings I have).
I think the terms of service won't let me link to it, but if you Google the old SNL skit with Patrick Swayze called "White Trash Bed and Breakfast", that is a pretty good allegory of Indianapolis/Indiana. Lonnie, the enterprising son of a clan of backwoods hillbillies, is trying to make a good impression on a travel writer from Travel and Leisure. Lonnie is in this instance Indianapolis/the Mayor's office/Tourism and Convention Bureau. The offerings are meager (ketchup and onion sandwiches, "antique car museum", running with the dogs out in the yard--but would be interesting maybe to someone who wanted something different and was feeling adventurous). Time and time again he is embarrassed by his trashy family who are more interested in their own small, petty concerns and behaving as they always do in loud, brassy, loutish ways. The Governor/Legislature of Indiana is represented by Daddy, played by Phil Hartmann, who comes back from prison. Everyone in the family is afraid of him. He is completely subsumed by the power he lords over the family. When he sees that this b&b thing might actually make some money, he somewhat allows the B&B idea but has to make it his own: "I now declare this the Hodges Day Spa!" That small concession causes everyone to explode in an uproar of gratitude. But because he is a bully with some serious power issues, Daddy then starts taunting Lonnie as a "sissy-boy" and the scene ends with Lonnie hitting his breaking point and threatening and then attempting to kill Daddy as the Travel and Leisure guy makes a hasty exit.
Indianapolis suffers from being at least about 55%, culturally-speaking, a Northern city. Again, I am not sure what I can link here, so Google "Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?" Indiana is mostly in the Appalachian region. People who want their old-timey religion, are distrustful of government and outsiders, and easily swayed into voting against their own economic best-interests on the basis of their social wedge issues. Indianapolis (and other cities with a more progressive agenda such as Bloomington, Lafayette, Gary, and Muncie) is not really allowed "home rule." The mayor had to go, hat in hand, to the state legislature twice to ask them to please let Indianapolis tax itself so we could build a bigger stadium for one of our few drawing attractions (the NFL Colts). This was a Republican Mayor begging a gerrymandered, never gonna be anything but Republican super-majority House and Senate. I've been waiting for over a decade for a decent transit system. We actually might be making some headway, if you believe the paper. But what you basically have is a plantation-owner, Daddy-like mentality in a no-checks legislature lording over poor, un- or under-educated peasants. And they don't want this to change. They hold all the cards. Why would they want to?
In the meantime, people grow up here or come here with ideas about how "things could be different." They do things to make small, incremental changes. Over the years things have changed. We have the artsy and gritty Fountain Square, bike lanes, science/tech companies, charming little cupcake shops, food trucks. There are many shining, isolated examples. In the big picture though, it's still very much the same as it ever was. I came here to get my education, and on a college level, I feel like I got a decent one. I came here to get some experience in my field, and it wasn't nearly as hard as it would have been had I stayed on the East Coast. No one has ever brazenly and openly gay-bashed me. After ten years of getting the same answer when I suggested and agitated to change things like "Why can't we build prettier buildings downtown? Why can't we have a decent transit system? Why don't we give homeless people homes and then work on their mental health/substance issues? Why don't we have a Code Enforcement/Animal Care and Control that's given adequate funding and authority?" with the answer always being "Well, if you don't like it, move somewhere else. There's a three lane highway back to where you came from," I am in the wind. I'm not taking the highway either. First class for me. Yay.
So I'm off to a neon mirage in the West. Better money, probably a lower quality of life. Sure. But I need a break from the undercurrent of racism and holier-than-thou hypocrisy and good-old-boy demagoguery that passes for the quality of life here. If the past is any indication of the future, when I return in a half-decade or so (as all my childhood friends and family are here), I will be pleasantly surprised once again at the sum of the incremental changes that have occurred in my absence.
I have lived between Indianapolis and the East Coast most of my life. I lived here in the 80s when it was India-NO-Place, then again in the Mid-90's when it actually started to become more like a city with the advent of Circle Center and the expansion of convention tourism, and then again came back and settled in the early 00's when Lucas Oil was built and Downtown actually started to be a little dirty and a place where panhandlers could actually make a "living." So it has changed, but I will try to acknowledge the feeling I have felt that I believe the OP is getting at (because it sounds like the feelings I have).
I think the terms of service won't let me link to it, but if you Google the old SNL skit with Patrick Swayze called "White Trash Bed and Breakfast", that is a pretty good allegory of Indianapolis/Indiana. Lonnie, the enterprising son of a clan of backwoods hillbillies, is trying to make a good impression on a travel writer from Travel and Leisure. Lonnie is in this instance Indianapolis/the Mayor's office/Tourism and Convention Bureau. The offerings are meager (ketchup and onion sandwiches, "antique car museum", running with the dogs out in the yard--but would be interesting maybe to someone who wanted something different and was feeling adventurous). Time and time again he is embarrassed by his trashy family who are more interested in their own small, petty concerns and behaving as they always do in loud, brassy, loutish ways. The Governor/Legislature of Indiana is represented by Daddy, played by Phil Hartmann, who comes back from prison. Everyone in the family is afraid of him. He is completely subsumed by the power he lords over the family. When he sees that this b&b thing might actually make some money, he somewhat allows the B&B idea but has to make it his own: "I now declare this the Hodges Day Spa!" That small concession causes everyone to explode in an uproar of gratitude. But because he is a bully with some serious power issues, Daddy then starts taunting Lonnie as a "sissy-boy" and the scene ends with Lonnie hitting his breaking point and threatening and then attempting to kill Daddy as the Travel and Leisure guy makes a hasty exit.
Indianapolis suffers from being at least about 55%, culturally-speaking, a Northern city. Again, I am not sure what I can link here, so Google "Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?" Indiana is mostly in the Appalachian region. People who want their old-timey religion, are distrustful of government and outsiders, and easily swayed into voting against their own economic best-interests on the basis of their social wedge issues. Indianapolis (and other cities with a more progressive agenda such as Bloomington, Lafayette, Gary, and Muncie) is not really allowed "home rule." The mayor had to go, hat in hand, to the state legislature twice to ask them to please let Indianapolis tax itself so we could build a bigger stadium for one of our few drawing attractions (the NFL Colts). This was a Republican Mayor begging a gerrymandered, never gonna be anything but Republican super-majority House and Senate. I've been waiting for over a decade for a decent transit system. We actually might be making some headway, if you believe the paper. But what you basically have is a plantation-owner, Daddy-like mentality in a no-checks legislature lording over poor, un- or under-educated peasants. And they don't want this to change. They hold all the cards. Why would they want to?
In the meantime, people grow up here or come here with ideas about how "things could be different." They do things to make small, incremental changes. Over the years things have changed. We have the artsy and gritty Fountain Square, bike lanes, science/tech companies, charming little cupcake shops, food trucks. There are many shining, isolated examples. In the big picture though, it's still very much the same as it ever was. I came here to get my education, and on a college level, I feel like I got a decent one. I came here to get some experience in my field, and it wasn't nearly as hard as it would have been had I stayed on the East Coast. No one has ever brazenly and openly gay-bashed me. After ten years of getting the same answer when I suggested and agitated to change things like "Why can't we build prettier buildings downtown? Why can't we have a decent transit system? Why don't we give homeless people homes and then work on their mental health/substance issues? Why don't we have a Code Enforcement/Animal Care and Control that's given adequate funding and authority?" with the answer always being "Well, if you don't like it, move somewhere else. There's a three lane highway back to where you came from," I am in the wind. I'm not taking the highway either. First class for me. Yay.
So I'm off to a neon mirage in the West. Better money, probably a lower quality of life. Sure. But I need a break from the undercurrent of racism and holier-than-thou hypocrisy and good-old-boy demagoguery that passes for the quality of life here. If the past is any indication of the future, when I return in a half-decade or so (as all my childhood friends and family are here), I will be pleasantly surprised once again at the sum of the incremental changes that have occurred in my absence.
Best of luck. Keep up the good fight.
Then move to Baltimore and keep up the good fight. Best of Luck.
I have lived between Indianapolis and the East Coast most of my life. I lived here in the 80s when it was India-NO-Place, then again in the Mid-90's when it actually started to become more like a city with the advent of Circle Center and the expansion of convention tourism, and then again came back and settled in the early 00's when Lucas Oil was built and Downtown actually started to be a little dirty and a place where panhandlers could actually make a "living." So it has changed, but I will try to acknowledge the feeling I have felt that I believe the OP is getting at (because it sounds like the feelings I have).
I think the terms of service won't let me link to it, but if you Google the old SNL skit with Patrick Swayze called "White Trash Bed and Breakfast", that is a pretty good allegory of Indianapolis/Indiana. Lonnie, the enterprising son of a clan of backwoods hillbillies, is trying to make a good impression on a travel writer from Travel and Leisure. Lonnie is in this instance Indianapolis/the Mayor's office/Tourism and Convention Bureau. The offerings are meager (ketchup and onion sandwiches, "antique car museum", running with the dogs out in the yard--but would be interesting maybe to someone who wanted something different and was feeling adventurous). Time and time again he is embarrassed by his trashy family who are more interested in their own small, petty concerns and behaving as they always do in loud, brassy, loutish ways. The Governor/Legislature of Indiana is represented by Daddy, played by Phil Hartmann, who comes back from prison. Everyone in the family is afraid of him. He is completely subsumed by the power he lords over the family. When he sees that this b&b thing might actually make some money, he somewhat allows the B&B idea but has to make it his own: "I now declare this the Hodges Day Spa!" That small concession causes everyone to explode in an uproar of gratitude. But because he is a bully with some serious power issues, Daddy then starts taunting Lonnie as a "sissy-boy" and the scene ends with Lonnie hitting his breaking point and threatening and then attempting to kill Daddy as the Travel and Leisure guy makes a hasty exit.
Indianapolis suffers from being at least about 55%, culturally-speaking, a Northern city. Again, I am not sure what I can link here, so Google "Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?" Indiana is mostly in the Appalachian region. People who want their old-timey religion, are distrustful of government and outsiders, and easily swayed into voting against their own economic best-interests on the basis of their social wedge issues. Indianapolis (and other cities with a more progressive agenda such as Bloomington, Lafayette, Gary, and Muncie) is not really allowed "home rule." The mayor had to go, hat in hand, to the state legislature twice to ask them to please let Indianapolis tax itself so we could build a bigger stadium for one of our few drawing attractions (the NFL Colts). This was a Republican Mayor begging a gerrymandered, never gonna be anything but Republican super-majority House and Senate. I've been waiting for over a decade for a decent transit system. We actually might be making some headway, if you believe the paper. But what you basically have is a plantation-owner, Daddy-like mentality in a no-checks legislature lording over poor, un- or under-educated peasants. And they don't want this to change. They hold all the cards. Why would they want to?
In the meantime, people grow up here or come here with ideas about how "things could be different." They do things to make small, incremental changes. Over the years things have changed. We have the artsy and gritty Fountain Square, bike lanes, science/tech companies, charming little cupcake shops, food trucks. There are many shining, isolated examples. In the big picture though, it's still very much the same as it ever was. I came here to get my education, and on a college level, I feel like I got a decent one. I came here to get some experience in my field, and it wasn't nearly as hard as it would have been had I stayed on the East Coast. No one has ever brazenly and openly gay-bashed me. After ten years of getting the same answer when I suggested and agitated to change things like "Why can't we build prettier buildings downtown? Why can't we have a decent transit system? Why don't we give homeless people homes and then work on their mental health/substance issues? Why don't we have a Code Enforcement/Animal Care and Control that's given adequate funding and authority?" with the answer always being "Well, if you don't like it, move somewhere else. There's a three lane highway back to where you came from," I am in the wind. I'm not taking the highway either. First class for me. Yay.
So I'm off to a neon mirage in the West. Better money, probably a lower quality of life. Sure. But I need a break from the undercurrent of racism and holier-than-thou hypocrisy and good-old-boy demagoguery that passes for the quality of life here. If the past is any indication of the future, when I return in a half-decade or so (as all my childhood friends and family are here), I will be pleasantly surprised once again at the sum of the incremental changes that have occurred in my absence.
Best of luck. Keep up the good fight.
What did you do to improve the city today besides b**ch about it?
I gotta say, I've often felt the same way. I don't like everything about Indiana. But I don't think what you're criticizing is just an Indianapolis/Indiana problem. I think it's an *American* problem. Try living on either of the coasts (California and Boston especially) if you don't like "holier-than-thou hypocrisy." It's there, too. Undercurrent of racism? First thing that comes to my mind is the neon mirages of the West -- and Baltimore. When I think of homelessness and teenagers living on the street: man, Portland, Oregon, and Denver pop into my mind immediately.
But whatever. What did YOU do today to actually make Indianapolis a better place to live?
Gary, Muncie, and Lafayette: how are they more progressive than Indianapolis, and would you seriously move to Gary.
I grew up in the Butler Tarkington area of Indianapolis and moved to DC about 8 years ago. I miss Indy like all hell for what it is. To be blunt (no pun intended) I think the most obvious and logical thing Indiana as a state could do is legalize marijuana. This is farm country. The public schools and now township schools are abysmal and getting worse every year and there are minimal job opportunities above poverty wages for the majority of people. There is no money- the state needs to take advantage of its prized farm land and get it going! When I see the revenue coming in to Colorado it frustrates me to no end because Indy could be doing the same thing. All I can hope is that the old generation of conservatives die off soon so Indiana can truly progress and get with the 21st century. I wont hold my breath though..
Brown County, areas around the Ohio River like New Albany and areas on the Western border with Illinois near Shades and Turkey Run SP are very pretty. Everything else? Meh.
Indianapolis has had good academic infrastructure (grade school through college) for years. Their problem is brain drain. I'm one of them - a Kelley School of Business graduate who wanted so much more than what Indy or Bloomington had to offer.
You'd think that with schools like IU, Purdue and Notre Dame that Indiana would be a major economic player. Yet it's a middle of the pack player. Of course, Indiana isn't the only state experiencing this problem, but it's there nonetheless.
Brown County, areas around the Ohio River like New Albany and areas on the Western border with Illinois near Shades and Turkey Run SP are very pretty. Everything else? Meh.
Indianapolis has had good academic infrastructure (grade school through college) for years. Their problem is brain drain. I'm one of them - a Kelley School of Business graduate who wanted so much more than what Indy or Bloomington had to offer.
You'd think that with schools like IU, Purdue and Notre Dame that Indiana would be a major economic player. Yet it's a middle of the pack player. Of course, Indiana isn't the only state experiencing this problem, but it's there nonetheless.
The brain gain in the state is all flowing to Hamilton County for the most part.
Indianapolis is way ahead of most Midwestern cities in terms of amenities. quality of life, low unemployment and still somewhat affordable property values.
The city government is not bloated or corrupt (like Cincinnati or Detroit). Its growth is consistent with demand and the city continues to attract more and more corporations and start ups. It is becoming a major center surrounded with good suburban communities. If anything its becoming a bit crowded downtown, Parking continues to be problem (but nothing like Chicago). and while it doesn't have "millennial pet projects" like streetcars or trains, it doesn't really need them because the city is well connected with a good highway system..
Indianapolis has good bike trails , the Monon and frankly is the envy of many Midwestern cities who are financially teetering on insolvency with pension fund problems, and watching populations decline. We have a great arts scene, good museums and good open spaces within the downtown.
While there is still need for improvement we are years ahead of many other cities.
The outlook is good and the rest of the state will improve as well, Rome wasn't built in a day, its a process! Most of the people who complain about Indy haven't lived anywhere else, or remember what the downtown used to be like 15-20 yrs ago.
Sure Racism is alive and thriving in Indy today
The only people you hear talk about race in Indy are the race baiting class. Everyone else doesn't think about it or really care. Live and let live.
I call BS. I've seen it and heard it first hand. And what the heck is a race baiting class?
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