What thing do you think Indy needs the most?

[domergurl]

oooooooook folks ... let's put this one back on the on topic interstate!

[wh15395]

Originally Posted by domergurl

oooooooook folks ... let's put this one back on the on topic interstate!

Ok, well I think Indy needs more high rise condo buildings downtown. I would love to live in one, but there are none developed or being planned (that I know of).

[chalcedony]

Originally Posted by Naptowner

What Indianapolis needs the most are several high-wage employers. The things you folks are mentioning - streetcars, NHL teams, etc. - don't PRODUCE prosperity; they are PRODUCTS of prosperity.

I realize we're just shooting the breeze about things that would be nice to have, but if you're seriously talking about what this city needs "most," it certainly isn't anything like a 3rd major league sports team or swapping out our buses with streetcars. It's jobs, period. Well-paying jobs.

While I see what you're saying, aren't well-paying jobs also a product of prosperity?

How do you attract them, or attract the sort of people who have the ambition/talent/desire to create them, and to create them in Indianapolis?


Creating jobs is HARD. Unless those jobs are created by the government (which many would argue is a net loss, whether through tax abatements or literal expansion of the public sector), there is no silver bullet for determining what will be the trick.

Eli Lilly didn't become a major company because of infrastructure or NFL teams, but he also came from a period when people often lived in a single city their entire lives. The fact remains that people have a choice because different places evoke various qualities of life.

Indianapolis is better poised than it was fifty years ago to be a major player in the Midwest. It used to consider Dayton or Omaha to be peer cities, and yet now it usually is compared to Cincinnati, Milwaukee, or St. Louis. Louisville was a bigger metro than Indy not so long ago.

But most would argue the city still has a long way to go. I think most would agree that mega-stadia are not a sure-fire winner anymore, and I don't imagine there will be a huge protest if the Pacers leave town. And will the Lucas Oil Stadium continue to fill its seats after Manning retires? Indy has lost focus on some of the fundamental livability issues in its pursuit of big-ticket items. We have a transit system on par with Bloomington, IN, which is less than a tenth of Indy's size. Parks are among the least funded in the nation among major cities. Graduation rates for IPS ranked dead last in 2009. We have no streetlights or sidewalks in about 2/3 of Marion County. Ouch. How are we to compete with St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, etc with all of these problems? Clearly they have problems of their own, but we can't keep using the "most affordable city" rating if we don't offer a quality of life to justifying it. Gary IN is obviously pretty affordable as well.

The mundane, workaday stuff isn't as sexy as a giant arena, but it's time the city go back to reconsidering them because it has some serious catching up to do. I want to think that Indy's best years are still ahead of it (they certainly aren't in its past of India-no-place) but I think the city is at a critical point where decisions on how to use public $$$ could be a make-or-break scenario for the city over the next twenty-five years.