Is Merrillville in decline? (Gary, Hammond: apartment complexes, violent crime, homes)

[Northwest Indiana]

Originally Posted by msamhunter

Legally southlake mall is in hobart.

True, and years ago many Hobart residents hated not being acknowledged for this...now? Many Hobart residents wish the mall wasn't associated with their town.

[Colts]

I think it's pretty evident if you had to ask.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

It appears Merrilville is in decline from what I read on the forum along with some contacts I have.

The other factor areas are constantly in change.

Just look at all the change the South Burbs have gone thru.

Going forward it appears Dyer, St. John , Crown Point will continue to grow and prosper.

I would love to see Hammond rebound into a flourishing city because of the proximity to work centers in
Chicago.

Hammond physically is sitting pretty good with access to major highways , mass transit (southshore line)
and its proximity to the city.

[wh15395]

How would Merrillville not be declining? It has absolutely nothing unique to offer. All it is is a dying suburb of Gary filled with stip malls and restaurants. At least Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago have some unique, urban qualities about them that gives people hope that they could see gentrification. Merrillville reminds me exactly of the north side commercial area in Fort Wayne. The only difference is that that's all Merrillville has, while places like Fort Wayne have a growing downtown and up-scale neighborhoods to support all the retail. As soon as areas like Crown Point decide to start building up their own retail hubs, Merrillville will look like West 38th Street in Indianapolis.

[tjake]

Merrillville, without question has declined. Such a shame. But I think it has more to do with the continuing decline of the urban core in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago. Gary has continued to lose double digit population percentages. Making living near Gary even less desirable over the years as the crime problem has simply spread over to nearby towns. Pretty much all towns near Gary have experienced an uptick in crime over the past 5-10 years. It's not only Merrillville that is no longer a nice place to live. It's more of a regional decline. Which has caused a population push to further out northwest indiana towns. Such as crown point. But, the decline of an area like Merrillville is bad for the entire region as a whole in the longterm. Pushing growth further out while the inner core towns closest to the economic engine of Chicago continue to decline. Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago have turned into areas with high numbers of city of chicago ghetto resident transplants. Since the waiting list for section 8 in lake county is so much shorter. You get residents from chicago neighborhoods like englewood moving to towns as far out as cedar lake. Because those towns have quality cheap rental properties available for rent that accept section 8. And a fairly high percentage of rented residential properties. Do in part to the extremely low property taxes.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

I am not sure if they can slow the demise of Merrillville, but I do not think its a stretch to say its already moving and these things happen rather quickly.

This is not to be offensive in any way but I have been there lately and even my passengers who were not there in a long time mentioned this
fact without the topic even being approached.

If you fast forward 20 years I would speculate that region and retail would have either shifted East to Valpo, South to Crown Point and St. John.

Schererville and surrounding area is holding its own good.

[Bluefox]

I may be in the minority here but I don't think it is necessarily in a total decline. In terms of schools, safety, yes it is pretty evident and really too bad. However, it's noteworthy that the crime index Merrillville is still below the US average. And I don't see Merrillville losing its spot as the economic/retail hub of NWI anytime soon. Southlake Mall is still decent IMO, and there are still a ton of stores/restaurants in Merrillville that are not anywhere else in NWI. I think it would take a new mall built elsewhere in NWI for you to see a real shift, or a really dramatic and continuous upswing in crime. (And yes I know the mall is technically in Hobart but that area is integrally connected to Merrillville).

I know that there was a proposal at some point for a big box mall in Chesterton that was met with heavy resistance and eventually fizzled out. I'd presume there would be that kind of resistance in most of the other "nicer" communities as well for a mall similar to Southlake. Fact of the matter is that Merrillville serves a lot of functions - people can go there for retail, food, entertainment, etc. and then go back to their nice, quiet communities. Moreover there really aren't too many places in NWI that have a central location to the major population centers of both Lake and Porter Co. that Merrillville has, especially with the proximity of I-65. So even though retail is growing elsewhere, I don't think it will really be enough to knock Merrillville out of the top spot any time soon.

In my opinion you'll never see a decline as steep and pronounced as that of Gary anywhere in the region barring some natural disaster. Merrillville may be in "decline" in some respects, but I don't see any evidence that commercial activity in the area is abating in any meaningful way.

[Northwest Indiana]

I am only posting this here because much of the reason that many people in Crown Point do not want more multi-family housing is because the worst areas of Merrillville seem to be where there is multi-family housing. More specifically, multi-family rentals. EdwardRose wanted to build a large apartment complex right off of the I-65/231 interchange but it was dropped when this moratorium was put in place...it will be interesting to see what developments will be proposed now...

Mayor lifts moratorium on new multifamily housing in Crown Point

What is anyone's opinion on this?

[knighthood82]

Originally Posted by tjake

You get residents from chicago neighborhoods like englewood moving to towns as far out as cedar lake.

Haha, where do you come up with this stuff? Englewood residents moving to Cedartucky? Sounds like that would be the start of Civil War II.

[Northwest Indiana]

Originally Posted by McGert

So since Merrilville declined as a flight burn what makes you think Crown Point won't decline either as people from Merrilville relocate to CP?

This is something that really has gone through my head as well. It is definitely a possibility. I could see the northern part of CP (in Ross Township) declining as more young families with kids are opting to live in Center Township. It would be primarily because of the fact that North CP = Merrillville Schools = not so good.

It would probably still be safe for a while. But the Center Township area of CP seems to have a long way to go before we see much decline. CP just needs to be really really careful not to make the same mistakes Merrillville did in allowing parts of town to be saturated with apartments (which means more transient, less rooted residents overall) especially at gateways into the town.

But I always do think to myself. Is CP just trying to slow down an "inevitable decline"?...It does cross my mind, but the area that CP covers is so big that I just think that unless the whole area becomes paved over with substandard development that all of the residential areas won't decline as fast (if at all as many did in Merrillville).