Question about Whiting (Hammond, East Chicago, Hope: for sale, low crime, houses)

[svillechris]

Surrounded by East Chicago and Hammond, how do you think Whiting has been able to remain predominantly caucasian? The property values are not exorbitantly high and the schools are about average, but not great. I know that there is a large Polish polulation in Whiting, and maybe they have just chosen to stick to their roots and not flee to south lake county or porter county like many others have. I just find this very intriguing and interesting. Thoughts?

[domergurl]

It's Slovak more than Polish. The original population is aging and more hispanics are buying up the old homes.

Whiting was a factory town created by Standard Oil. You still see some of that past, but it's fading.

[Dee Cap]

Hello there. New to the forum When I lived there as a child to teenager before moving west. My thoughts on why Whiting is still pretty white is home owners either when they were too old to maintain their properties due to health or tired of the cold winter months, gave their houses to their kids. Those kids now adults worked and went to school in the area, why move? Nice pre/post war homes, low taxes and low crime.

Those that sold for whatever reason, I believe "cared" who they sold to. My father was a prefect example of that. The housing market in the early 80's was HORRIBLE and it took well over a year for my father to sell his house. My siblings were all married and living area the area and didnt want the house. My mother and father wanted to retire somewhere warm, so up went the house for sale. I know most people would call that descriminatory on who you sell to but that I believe is the one of two reasons why Whiting is still well Whiting.

I concur on the Whiting school system...not the best by far. But there are still those families that want to keep that same "Whiting is a nice town, let's keep it that way" mentality and refuse to let their community fall to the wayside and get themselves involved in the community to keep it safe. I know, I know...crime is everywhere....but when you stand your ground as a community, well then things usually stay within the community.

On a side note: All my siblings still reside in Whiting and I am relocating back to Whiting the end of Spring. So what does that say? Hope that gives you a little insight

[lukeo2194]

i'm a high school student and you haven't been there lately. whiting is about 50% mexican now. it's funny but the people that commit the worst crimes here are white kids related to the police officers....although my fellow mexicans do pretty stupid thing here too. the police are really nice people though. i can't say they are racist or crooked to the extent of what I hear other people say. the school system is fail though. especially in math. 75% of my algebra class freshman year failed their ECA and had to take a catch up class this year,and even then when we took it again,the majority of us students still felt extremely confused on what we were doing.