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In the end Gary is home for a lot of people, even those who had to move away to make a better life for themselves and their families, it's Gary and when out in the world and you run into one, you show love. Problem is, the city has some major hurdles to tackle esp. with property taxes, crime and jobs. If you can change the mentality which is right now defeated, you will make progress. It doesn't take a lot to clean up the neighborhood, mow the lawn, help your neighbors if they are unable to. You see that in Miller, SunnySide, Parts of the West Side, Small Farms and part of Glen Park. Compare that with the East Side, Midtown and Aetna and you will see the difference in crime between those that care and those that don't especially Miller and Aetna. If the city showed some pride, I think they would get more business because its potential is off the charts, just need the people to do their small part.
Your overall point is a great one and I agree. However, I'm still not sold on the issue of the hurdle of jobs not being present in Gary. A town does not HAVE to have a lot of jobs within the town to make it a nice place to live. Many people (probably most) in this area do not work in the same town that they live in. Do you think most people living in Munster or St. John actually work in those towns too? Some yes, most probably not. My point is that this whole "Gary doesn't have any jobs" excuse is simply that, an excuse. Three main things that residents want in their town when choosing where to live are schools, services, and safety. Right now, Gary fails in all 3. That's why it's in the condition it is currently in.
Sorry Dan, I have a real clue as to what it was like. Gary was at it's worse during the 90's and yes then it was bad, VERY bad with the crack cocaine epidemic and worse than the 80's; BUT the city still rang true, if you didn't mess with them, they didn't mess with you. Yes there are crimes of opportunity just like anywhere else, but no where like Indianapolis or Cincy or any other city where the under-educated continually try to make a name for themselves. Gary is nowhere near as bad today as it was in the 90's and the 70's.
Insurance companies stopped insuring in the 80's because structures kept being burned down by the owners for the payout as they ran out the back door to the suburbs. Of course they are going to stop insuring structures. High Inflation, a mass drop from 30k employees at US Steel alone, over 100k steel employees in northern lake county to some 8900 in a matter of a few years with inflation was bound to be nothing but a recipe for disaster and reganomics only made the fat cats in Pittsburgh wealthier and did jack squat for the citizens of Gary.
Gary has always had a violent streak in it. City founded in 1906, US Steel opened in 1909 and from then on, Gary has always been a hard city. If you are afraid of your shadow, you will not survive and those who were, never did whether it was 1919 or 2011. It was bad when it was all white, it was bad when it was majority white, it was bad when it was almost a 50-50 split and it's bad now that it's majority black. That one thing has never changed about this city is you cannot be a pushover in live within its city limits.
As far as assaulting teachers, it's worse now than it ever was when I was in school or you. No where close and this is a nationwide epidemic at this point and not left solely to the poor urban communities. It's more generational where kids that got the belt and the switch (oh the memories) swore to never do that to their children and parents just became more and more lax to what it is today than what it used to when parents were busy being parents instead of trying to be their child's bff.
Your overall point is a great one and I agree. However, I'm still not sold on the issue of the hurdle of jobs not being present in Gary. A town does not HAVE to have a lot of jobs within the town to make it a nice place to live. Many people (probably most) in this area do not work in the same town that they live in. Do you think most people living in Munster or St. John actually work in those towns too? Some yes, most probably not. My point is that this whole "Gary doesn't have any jobs" excuse is simply that, an excuse. Three main things that residents want in their town when choosing where to live are schools, services, and safety. Right now, Gary fails in all 3. That's why it's in the condition it is currently in.
That rings true for traditional type suburbs like Munster, Valpo, Griffith, etc. Smaller sizes, who's main goal is housing and schools, smaller budgets, smaller manpower to offer services, a lot of which tend to outsource like water and trash. But even those areas have enough jobs and businesses to help supplement its tax base. Gary isn't that, it's a city, with virtually no tax base with the exception of USS and even they get huge discounts. So nothing to supplement residential property taxes which is used to provide those same goods and services as a traditional suburb but on a grander scale. So yes, jobs is crucial to any city even if others travel outside of that city to work because you will have others travelling in to work that buy lunch, park and myriad of other things that adds to that city's economy. A little is better than nothing.
The highest concentration of jobs should be in the core city. For NWI, it's not, it's in Merrillville and parts of Hobart. While it's very easy to understand with Lake County being a long county that certain things be more centralized like County government, it might not always be the best idea in the long run. It creates well a lake county which is so polarized and so north county vs. south county and if both sides truly learned to cooperate and HELP each other, the opportunity for both is way up there with the Lake and access to people. Lake County is smaller than Marion county, but it has direct access to a lot more people to market to than Indianapolis with 6 million people right across the border.
Granted, I grew up in Gary as well and know how rough it can be at times. But everyone else in the area that I know that has never been to the city or lives in one of the more affluent towns always comes with the condscending remarks or the "why would ever go back there?" type comments without even giving it a second thought. I'm like, uhhh....I am a product of that city, even if I do come off a tad more hipster.
Here is a new video about Gary, Indiana. It now looks like a horrible place to live. It is really sad as it was a nice place to live with plenty of jobs. Once the steel plant closed it sealed their fate.
How about the labor comes from the idiots that commit the crimes in Gary
Make the crime makers beautify a neighborhood
give them shovels and dirt and seeds and let them use their minds vs
causing havoc at the county jail or state pen
let these idiots see the value of something vs. the destruction of lives and property
I am sure Gary has plenty of boarded up houses that a bank could get off the books and write off as a donation or something
In the end Gary is home for a lot of people, even those who had to move away to make a better life for themselves and their families, it's Gary and when out in the world and you run into one, you show love. Problem is, the city has some major hurdles to tackle esp. with property taxes, crime and jobs. If you can change the mentality which is right now defeated, you will make progress. It doesn't take a lot to clean up the neighborhood, mow the lawn, help your neighbors if they are unable to. You see that in Miller, SunnySide, Parts of the West Side, Small Farms and part of Glen Park. Compare that with the East Side, Midtown and Aetna and you will see the difference in crime between those that care and those that don't especially Miller and Aetna. If the city showed some pride, I think they would get more business because its potential is off the charts, just need the people to do their small part.
See, that's where you're wrong.
I know Miller like the back of my hand, there's plenty of abandoned buildings in Miller. I see em everyday.
The abandoned building situation is the way it is because the people who own those buildings REFUSE TO SELL the buildings.
There have been people from all over the world who have tried to come to Gary and revitalize it and buy the buildings and renovate downtown. The people who own them now REFUSE to let those people do it.
I know this for a fact.
How do I know?
Because I live here and know people in the city government and who own small business around here.
Going back to the early '90s, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York business people have been trying to carve up Gary. To the point that Gary was named the number one place in America to invest in by the HomeVestors of America 5 years ago.
They won't sell. They won't let people come and renovate the buildings. If I went into those buildings downtown with my friends, we could be arrested for trespassing.
That's a fact.
They're even trying to run all the working class people out of Miller. In Miller, they pay the highest property taxes in the state of Indiana, which many of the families are having a hard time trying to afford, and is forcing a lot of families to abandon their houses in Miller.
I'm not sure you have a true grasp of what things were like when us old fogies left Gary. A city we helped build. There were far more reasons to leave than to stay.Insurance companies would no longer insure stores property or money because they were being robbed and broken into so often. Women were being raped IN CHURCHES! Small children were murdered in restaurant bathrooms.My 11 year old brother among them. Teachers were being assaulted. You couldnt ride the city bus downtown anymore without being robbed or your female companion being sexually assaulted.Even the Goldblatts Santa got beat up so bad he never fully recovered. If you arent safe in church. If even Santa cant do his thing in safety. If your life and property are seemingly always in danger, why should you stay? How many times can a parent tell thier children that violence isnt the solution to any problem and hard work will get them what they want in life when all the kids see is thier friends and neighbors being assaulted and thier bikes,Christmas gifts and playful childhoods being stolen by someone too lazy to earn thier own. I dont think you have ANY clue just how bad it got before we chose to leave. How many times would you have to be hit over the head with a 2x4 before you decided that maybe you shouldnt be standing in front of the guy weilding the board?
Guy, now I see you have a PERSONAL vendetta against Gary, but let me ask you this.
Did that not happen in New York during the '70s, '80s, & '90s?
How about L.A.?
How about Miami?
Have you seen "Cocaine Cowboys"?
What about Las Vegas?
New Orleans?
What YOU refuse to see is that Gary doesn't have any problems WORST than the rest of those cities, except for the lack of opportunities.
New York, Chicago, and L.A. are world famous for their violence and crime, yet they still have business districts, do they not?
They still have arenas, marinas, and movie theatres, and plenty of attractions.
Gary's problem is that Gary doesn't have ANY of those things.
You can't support a whole city on a mostly abandoned Steel Mill that doesn't even employ mostly people from that city, McDonalds, and cheap gas stations.
That is the difference.
You have your problems that are based on your unfortunate tragic circumstances, but Chicago has more. L.A. has more. New York has more and those cities were able to comeback in spite of worst gang, drug, and murder problems than Gary.
Maybe it's time to be a little objective and stop acting like Gary is the worst place in the whole damned world, when it's just a steel town that went down when the industry couldn't support it anymore and poverty and racism ravaged it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by svillechris
Your overall point is a great one and I agree. However, I'm still not sold on the issue of the hurdle of jobs not being present in Gary. A town does not HAVE to have a lot of jobs within the town to make it a nice place to live. Many people (probably most) in this area do not work in the same town that they live in. Do you think most people living in Munster or St. John actually work in those towns too? Some yes, most probably not. My point is that this whole "Gary doesn't have any jobs" excuse is simply that, an excuse. Three main things that residents want in their town when choosing where to live are schools, services, and safety. Right now, Gary fails in all 3. That's why it's in the condition it is currently in.
Um, you kind of do have to have jobs to have a functioning society.
How do you think schools and public services are funded?
The tax base.
Gary has no tax base except U.S. Steel, which employs mostly people from Munster, St. John, Merrillville, Schererville, and Illinois.
Most of the people who make money in Gary . . . . don't live in Gary.
That's the problem. The people who live in Gary, live disproportionately in apartments and rented houses, where you don't gain any equity from renting.
The people who do own had to deal with the purposeful devaluation of neighborhoods that Black people lived in, meaning that houses that Black people lived in would inherently be valued as less than houses owned by White people, leading to a lower value of property in Black neighborhoods, lower tax bases, leading to inferior schools, and public services.
I know Miller like the back of my hand, there's plenty of abandoned buildings in Miller. I see em everyday.
The abandoned building situation is the way it is because the people who own those buildings REFUSE TO SELL the buildings.
There have been people from all over the world who have tried to come to Gary and revitalize it and buy the buildings and renovate downtown. The people who own them now REFUSE to let those people do it.
I know this for a fact.
How do I know?
Because I live here and know people in the city government and who own small business around here.
Going back to the early '90s, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York business people have been trying to carve up Gary. To the point that Gary was named the number one place in America to invest in by the HomeVestors of America 5 years ago.
They won't sell. They won't let people come and renovate the buildings. If I went into those buildings downtown with my friends, we could be arrested for trespassing.
That's a fact.
They're even trying to run all the working class people out of Miller. In Miller, they pay the highest property taxes in the state of Indiana, which many of the families are having a hard time trying to afford, and is forcing a lot of families to abandon their houses in Miller.
I can assure you, I know miller like the back of my hand as well as the city, every zip code. You want to know why HomeVestors ranked Gary #1, it's because the houses aren't worth anything period. You can buy on the cheap, some buildings the bank and/or county would probably just give away to someone who wanted it. Even historic neighborhoods like SunnySide and Morningside aren't worth anything because of their zip code. You also might want to check who to see who actually DOES own a lot of those buildings, some are owned by the city, others taken over by the county, a quick trip to the assessors office will give you all the answers you need and will let you know who legally owns the property and not what you hear from city employees or someone who owns a small business since that is maintained by the county and not the city.
Property taxes in Miller, you do realize their is a 1% property tax cap in the state of Indiana right? There's been a tax cap in Miller since 2008, statewide since 2010. Now what the city is doing is using a state law to supersede the current state mandated tax cap of 1% to 1.5% (and it's city wide, not just miller) of value I believe but this is the last year the city can do it, after this year, it's 1% just like the rest of the state. That's one of the reasons the city is in a panic now because there will be a huge shortfall on an already distressed budget.
In the end, you never pointed out where I was wrong, what you state as fact is easily verifiable via the county. Bottom line, it's a city that feels defeated. There is a huge influx of people who won't do anything to uplift their neighbor. Like I said, it doesn't take a lot to pick up the trash and mow the lawn, but what you have is a place where the people literally use it as a landfill without regard to how it affects the city or their fellow citizens. With all of the land east of the mill throughout miller into MB that is part of Indiana Dunes, the tourism dollars for the city would be great BUT you have those who love Gary's reputation and will do anything to make sure it stays that way. Until you kill that mentality, there isn't anything that can be done. Until the parents instill discipline and enforce strong work ethic and education, nothing can be done.
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