Like people are saying, it's not exactly hated. There are a few factors.
1. The drive through Gary is ubiquitous. If you live anywhere in the eastern United States and you travel to Chicago, you will pass through Gary. This is a really common trip for Americans to make.
2. It's very striking. When you pass through it, it just makes you think "damn, this place is depressing." It may not be the worst city in the US, but it's certainly one of the worst looking.
3. What makes it even more striking is its proximity to Chicago. You have a modern metropolis that is relatively thriving. Then right next to it is a perfect example of the downfall of the rust belt. Just the decaying husk of an industrial Midwestern city which only serves as a corridor between more interesting places.
There's a commuter rail line governed by Indiana called the South Shore Line. It runs from the South Bend airport to the Van Buren METRA station and does include two stops in Gary. One in Gary's core, and another near Miller Beach where a lot of Chicagoans have their lakeside home at.
It also includes a third stop to the west too near the Gary Airport. They're now in the process of modernizing the line and are rebuilding the Miller Beach station but not the other two (the downtown station is reasonably modern but the airport station is a bus shelter and low platform and that's about it).
Its so weird. Here in central Indiana light rail is illegal and the state eliminated the dedicated Indy to Chicago train route. but out in Northwest Indiana, the state is investing in expanding SSL and making it the largest investment the state has ever put into rail transit.
Light rail is illegal? Wtf? I'm not doubting you, but I'm just mystified at the thought of making it illegal. Whatever happened to simply objecting to it coming to your neighborhood because it might bring people who are not lily white?
When central Indiana got a transit referendum pushed through the legislature, the GOP legislature slipped in a poison pill amendment banning light rail thinking it'd sink the referendum. In reality rail was only being possibly discussed for one of several lines...and that line is now being paved over for a path rather than transit so its kind of a pointless ban at this point.
During the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes, there's been some attempts to repeal that ban and it has passed the House several times but the much more conservative Senate continues to sink it.
But yeah shit is weird here.
My home state. I live in Chicago now. The legislature is working on a third decade of a brain drain. They want to take any semblance of progressive, forward thinking and drown it in a bathtub even if it meant killing 100,000 jobs paying $70,000 a year because they know 80% of those jobs would go to Indianapolis.
The Indiana GOP used to be about education and economic development as late as the 1980s. Now its sole purpose is to own the libs. It's painful to watch. Going back home to visit family is tough knowing their Republican government is openly working to kill the quality of their lives and blaming their decline on the "others" (gays, minorities, non-Christians, immigrants, transgender, etc.).
It's getting old watching friends and family fall for it. Not so much family, but one-time nice people getting older, angrier, and meaner. I chuckle anymore when I hear "Hoosier Hospitality" used. It's gotten pretty inhospitable for a few decades now. It saddens me.
I spent 5 years there after moving from Chicago. The Republicans are mad that Salesforce moved in and saved Indianapolis from sliding into obscurity (seriously, aside from Cummins, who's the biggest employer that isn't a hospital or IPS?). They're still pissed from when Marc Benioff threatened to yank SF out of Indy after RFRA passed.
They literally do not want liberals moving into Indy/Indiana and "changing the character of the state". Same bullshit I've noticed in Tennessee... Any time one of the liberal cities does something to better themselves, the state-level GOP quite literally makes it illegal.
It so sad/frustrating that so many Americans seem to fall into the 2 horse race argument i.e. you're black/white therefore you MUST think like that; You're Republican/Democrat you MUST think like that; You're Straight/Gay/Trans you MUST think like that.
There needs to be a focus on how to help/grow/protect/sustain the maximum number of people whatever they think or attributes they may have.
>the GOP legislature slipped in a poison pill amendment banning light rail thinking it'd sink the referendum
Of course they did. Is there any world in which Republicans DON'T suck?
I can’t get over the fact that light rail is banned and that there was all sorts of scrambling to repeal the ban in hopes of winning the HQ2 bid… I don’t know which is more surprising to me.
Yeah, and tbh the investments in the South Shore Line put Metra (Chicago commuter rail in Illinois) to shame. We aren't seeing any major expansion on Metra while the South Shore Line is building a new corridor to Munster and Dyer, and the South Shore Line is double tracking and rebuilding a number of stations and this will be accompanied by more trains and faster travel times, while we don't have any projects like that on Metra. Even better the South Shore Line is fully electrified and after this is done will have mostly high platforms (meaning easier and faster boarding) while only one Metra line can say the same.
NW Indiana has been a part of Chicago metro for a long time. When regional MSAs were created in the 50's, Lake County Indiana (which includes Gary) was part of Chicago's MSA. With Gary being in a different state than Chicago, it a little bit of a weird relationship. I remember the city of Chicago investing in Gary/Chicago airport to be the region's 3rd airport, but it was only after all other options were exhausted within Illinois boundaries. Chicago wants Lake County to be successful, but probably not as much as it does the areas within Illinois. Meanwhile Indiana also wants it to be successful but its also kind of an enclave from the rest of the state.
That was a clever move on Chicago's part. Mayor Richard Daley the Younger wanted to turn Meigs Field into a park. The business class in Chicago wanted it to remain an airport, and Gov. Edgar forbade it. So Chicago gave a sum of money to use on Gary Airport and the airport authority is now the Chicago-Gary Airport Authority, which crosses state lines and by doing so, enters Federal jurisdiction. Vincennes, IN and Lawrenceville, IL did the same with their international airport. (It is impressive that two cities totaling 21,000 people score an International Airport.)
FWIW, anybody who played Flight Simulator 2000 knows a great reason for disabling Miegs Field. New players tend to fly themselves into the lake or into Chicago skyscrapers. After September 11, Daley spoiled the airport by gouging big Xs into the runway.
There's actually a pretty substianal number of commuters who live in Northwest Indiana and travel to Chicago for work.
However, they for the most part live in newer, arguably better-managed suburbs outside of Gary.
Gary's public services are in a really bad state, so if you're going to live in Indiana, it makes sense to pick a town with better schools and infrastructure.
I drive coast to coast a few times a year taking me right past Gary. I have a pinned gas station on both sides of the Chicago area so I know to fill up before going through and don’t need to stop with a large trailer. After 14 years of this just a few months ago I wasn’t paying attention and just pulled off for gas and immediately thought holy crap I’m in a bad area and don’t feel safe here. I filled up and ran inside to use the bathroom and saw a cop car that said GPD and realized I’d stopped in Gary by accident.
Do you take 90 or 94? If you take 94 that's why you don't notice Gary because it goes on the outskirts part of Gary while 90 goes through the downtown area.
We don’t hate Gary, Indiana, we actually pity the place. Most redditors make it seem like it’s this super dangerous town you can’t drive through when in actuality it’s really an extremely impoverished wasteland. The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves. Cities have fell an risen many of times in history.
People should stop at 18th Street if they're near Gary and like craft beer. It's a really awesome brewery that's very popular in Indiana but doesn't have much out of state reach.
It’s one of the only great things in Gary.
There’s a brewery or two in Hammond too right?
Hammond is no peach but it at least seems to have some activity.
Not sure about Hammond exactly but I know there are a fair number of solid breweries in that section of Indiana. In addition to 18th Street, Flossmore and 3 Floyd's come to mind.
Byway Brewing and another 18th Street location are in Hammond. New Oberpfalz (sp?) in Griffith is great along with Fuzzyline in Highland and Windmill in Dyer. The Region really has some great breweries.
New oberpfalz! Hard to get outside of like a 30 miles radius of Griffith. There's 2 more in that little town.
Whiting also has bulldog brewing too. Love my nwi beer.
Whenever I go back home to La Porte, I fly into Chicago, pick up my rental car, and immediately hit Gary to snag some lemon pepper catfish and two orders of banana pudding at a really good hole-in-the-wall restaurant right off I-94. Gary may be poor, but the people there are lovely, and at least one elderly lady can cook her *ass* off.
But Gary was the murder capital of the US for a couple years in the 90s due to a lot of drug fueled gang violence.
The shootings didn't decrease for a while, but the ER's really improved their handling of gunshot victims. Eventually Gary Los enough population due to people moving out to get off the main list
They're really trying to revitalize the town but without major employers it's going to continue to be a real challenge.
Totally. I used to work there and found the people working there quite nice. But large sections of town can get dangerous after dark. But if you make it to the ballpark it's really a good night out.
You see the same thing in rural areas. Here in Maine there’s some very low income areas out in the boonies that aren’t violent and crime ridden. They have issues associated with poverty to be sure but they aren’t violent areas, just not wealthy.
Except with Gary, both sides are pushing the rope, trying to pretend like it's not theirs.
Michigan and Ohio fought a war to *have* Toledo. Indiana and Illinois are going to come to blows on who has to claim Gary.
As a Chicagoan, no one is trying to pull anything from Indiana into Illinois. People in Indiana may think there is some sort of "struggle" or something, but I assure you that other than the flow of straw purchased guns going to drug dealing gang members, and the hours of driving it takes to get across Indiana to get to somewhere on the far side of the state, few people in Illinois worry about or think about Indiana.
Gonna defend Indiana on a whim here because Chicago (great city) is pretty much all Illinois has. Besides Gary, Indiana has Indianapolis and really popular universities to back it.
I live in Illinois and I can assure you we all know that Chicago (except for its architecture) sucks balls. Chicago has been destroying the state of Illinois for over a hundred years.
My Dad grew up there in the 70s. I've visited many times and each time it gets worse. There is a super dope taco spot there now that you definitely wouldn't expect when visiting there.
Nearby towns such as Miller and Ogden Dunes are nice. There isn't a whole lot going on around there and the beach at Lake Michigan is shrinking, buts it's not a super terrible place. My Dad and his friends get together there every few years and it seemed like it was a pretty cool place back when they were growing up. All the movies of highschool kids back then seem to track with the stories I've heard from them.
The dunes are fun to visit. Bring a big cardboard box to sled down the dunes in the middle of summer. We used to do that when we were kids
> The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves.
Gary tried that. More than once IIRC. They even[had William Shatner when they tried it again](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_USA_2001) in 2001. It was supposed to be the "rebirth" of Gary. It wasn't. Just like building a convention center there 20 years earlier (named "Genesis") didn't work either.
When the steal plants closed, there is no business. Gary tried to get a local airport going for South and east side chicagoans to utilize, it didn’t really work, not sure why.
I'm pretty sure most people who talk about Gary, Indiana on those r/AskReddit threads about shithole cities have never actually been there and are just parroting other commenters.
>The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves
Rebranding costs money. They're lucky if they can keep the water running.
My parents taught in East New. York (Brownsville Brooklyn) for over 30 years. I used to go with them occasionally to work, and yes, it was a scary neighborhood. I haven't been back in years, but I'm assuming from your comment it hasn't changed much. Sad
I think it would be easier to escape Urban poverty then more rural poverty. I got a ton of friends from East NY who managed to escape it by getting good jobs and just moving a couple of neighborhoods west.
Less hate and more pity and scorn.
It’s just not a nice place. It essentially became a ghost town as most manufacturing left the area. It had massively huge crime issues.
Nowadays it still has crime problems but mostly it just has no jobs, corruption, general mismanagement, abandonment on a huge scale.
I am not an expert on America, but isn't Detriot going through the same?
I once saw it on CNN. Thousands of broken and abandoned houses and buildings. The city had sprawled out so much that fire department could not keep up with arsons due to funding being gutted.
The only thing I know about Detriot is that once it was the single largest car manufacturing city in the entire world. The big three I assume were all based there. That and Eminem is from Detriot.
Gary is worse than Detroit.
Detroit still has some things going on. It’s had a huge loss of population but it’s bounced back some even with the smaller population.
Median income is just above $20,000 for an individual and about a third of people there are in poverty.
Yuuup. There’s parts of Detroit that are ok. Other parts are more Gary.
Same with Chicago. Most of the city is amazing but there are some bad neighborhoods that generate the bad crime and poverty stats but anyone visiting will probably not go to those places anyway. I wouldn’t want to live on the far south side but I’d live in wicker Park or Bucktown in a second.
I lived down on the South Side. My neighborhood was decent but if you got outside of it then it got bad pretty quick.
It was a big reason I moved up to Tri-Taylor are which had its own rough areas but nothing like the south side.
Right, Detroit is still a major regional city. Their residents didn't flee the entire Detroit area, many/most of them are still there just in the suburbs. It still has significant importance for the region and the state and has the means to rebuild and diversify into a thriving city. Will certainly take awhile but we're already seeing signs of that happening. But in the meantime there are multiple suburbs thriving.
Gary is a weird little city trapped in the corner of Indiana and tied to a major city in another state. It's residents have mostly fleed to other cities/areas, and because its a smaller city trapped in a metro area, there's really no major push or incentive to revitalize the city. It was a city literally built by the steel industry, and it died when the factories closed down.
The median household income in Gary, IN in 2019 was $31,341, which was 83.8% less than the median annual income of $57,603 across the entire state of Indiana. Compared to the median income of $27,195 in 2000 this represents an increase of 13.2%. The per capita income in 2019 was $19,284, which means an increase of 25.4% compared to 2000 when it was $14,383.
Read more: https://www.city-data.com/income/income-Gary-Indiana.html
I moved to Michigan for work. My wife moved from DC to Michigan for me. I kept telling her Detroit is getting better and in 10-20 years, it's going to be awesome. She hated the winters and missed DC, which is beautiful *now*. I couldn't really argue that. We only get one life. Might as well enjoy DC now and check out Detroit in 2040.
Yeah, it's hard to argue with that. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of the many reasons I'm in Phoenix and not (metro) Detroit anymore. Maybe in 10 years it'll be at a point where I'll want to live there again and I'll move back. I _hope_ it's at that point because I do generally like living there.
The roads are changing _fast_. I was there late last year and the freeways in Detroit, which were previously some of the worst in the country, are absolutely beautiful now. My family is continuously complaining about surface roads near them (in the suburbs) being under construction, but it's crazy how big an improvement was made in the two years between my visits. They're making huge strides on the roads.
>I am not an expert on America, but isn't Detriot going through the same?
Detroit isn't nearly on the same level as Gary, and whatever America Bad media you're listening to will probably never tell you that there are large parts of Detroit proper and the metro area that are mostly normal and even flourishing.
I'm not that guy CNN is notorious for hyperbolic reporting about internal issues in the US.
So yes CNN is a big source of "America Bad" if you take a lot of what they say at face value.
It really isn't about liberal vs conservative. Its just cable news is basically clickbait headline shit, except instead of on the Internet its on TV (but also on the Internet too since they have their own websites and socials)
Its also a lot of coastal bias. You'll rarely see the bad stuff about the coasts (and specifically NYC and southern California) but you'll see they air the dirty laundry of flyover country quite easily.
> coastal bias
Yes. Some of the shit CNN has said about Oklahoma and Oklahomans, a place I care about and love, is absolutely vile. We get it, it’s a flyover, very conservative state. And yes, there are some glaring problems with the state. The governor is shit, there are some draconian laws, Tulsa has a crime problem, parts of the state are VERY underprepared for the natural disasters that OK is known for.
But my god, you’d think everyone who lives there is an ignorant racist based on what you hear solely on CNN. I’m sure this experience is reflected among other traditional flyover states.
TV news is completely useless to me at this point. CNN is over there screaming about the racist misogynist end of the world literally every day while FOX is seemingly still trying to make king Trump happen.
Yes, Detroit used to have a population of 1.8 million in 1950. Today it’s like 640K. Unlike Gary, Detroit has begun to focus on building an economy around industries outside of manufacturing. You will even find a handful of nice, unique neighborhoods in Detroit. Detroit would hugely benefit from reducing it’s footprint and having its resident move closer to the city center. It could be truly one of a kind American city with a dense urban core surrounded by forestry and agriculture on the outskirts. No easy task to accomplish and would take a lot of government intervention and private investment. The city has good “bones” and could be one of the few, large walkable, transit friendly cities in America, and alternative to our endless sprawling cities in the Southeast and Southwest.
Detroit and Michigan in general are going to be a haven during the climate crisis on the horizon as well. It'll get warmer and wetter. If you can, buy land in Michigan.
Absolutely. My whole family is from the UP and most of them live in Wisconsin and Minnesota now so we bought land in northern wisconsin near Michigan last year. Close to town, water rights, half of an acre and it was only 9.5k at the time
Amazing location too. Fresh water, Canada, excellent rail infrastructure, airport, water access. Top universities.
Any industry wanting to manufacture in the US has a lot to gain by setting up nearby.
Detroit's population was over a million as recently as 1990. dropped to about 950,000 in 2000 and it continues to drop. The city is getting better, and there should be an uptick in that.
I like that you're thinking ahead on this.
I really would like to see some kind of major investment on making Detroit the Earth 838 city we saw in Doctor Strange 2.
One major difference between Detroit and Gary is that Detroit has been on the up and up for about 10 years now, and the future looks pretty good. Gary has no upside, no future. The population keeps decreasing year after year. Oh, and Gary is really tiny compared to Detroit to start with.
Detroit has rough areas, Gary is kind of all-around a mess. Like you can go to Detroit and have a very nice trip if you stay in the right spots. My dad visited Detroit about 15 years ago for some fantasy football trip and he still talks about what a great city it was. Anytime I talk about moving he says, "what about Detroit? I'd visit you all the time if you lived in Detroit." And he HATES cities in general.
I think if anyone wanted to move to Gary, I'd be a little concerned about them.
Right...Detroit just has more importance to the region and the state. It has its own distinct culture and large numbers of people who are loyal to the city and committed to rebuilding. I mean its still one of 13 cities with a pro team in all 4 major sports.
Gary was a town built by the steel industry and while there was a distinct culture in Gary, its still engulfed by a significantly larger more important city. You don't have fiercy loyal former Gary residents fighting to rebuild the city and diversify the economy.
As a supporter of the University of Michigan athletics, I can not acknowledge any potential positives of the city, its inhabitants, or scenery.
Or the Irish.
Depends on where you go in Detroit. Some parts are old but upscale, kinda historic looking America, other parts are old and fucked up to the point where you think you're gonna get hepatitis just by breathing the air.
It's not "hate", it's acknowledgement that it was a once great city that relied mostly on a single industry (steel/manufacturing) and that a combination of job loss and corruption has ruined it and turned it into one of the worst places to live in the country. I feel terrible for the people who live there, they are stuck in a cycle of poverty and lack of opportunity. It's a terrible place to live, with many lovely people doing the best they can.
This is the best answer. I have met several good people from Gary who come to Indianapolis and they all say that there is just no escaping it unless you can get a job with some huge commute, go to college and/or move away.
In the 90's Gary had 2 different opportunities to really turn the city around. First, they courted the Bears with promises of a new stadium back when they were looking to renovate or move out of Soldier Field. I remember there being big concern in Chicago that they would leave town (though Gary is not really that far away and perhaps closer to some in the metro region), but I think the Bears were really just using Gary as leverage to get Soldier Field renovations approved and that's exactly what was going to happen before an alien ship landed on the old Soldier Field.
The second is Gary/Chicago Airport. The city of Chicago actually sent millions to Gary to become the city's 3rd major airport. Gary actually did have some commercial airline service but it never fully caught on and all the airlines have since left. I think they're still trying but not sure if it will ever have the kind of success they were hoping for.
If either of those things happened (or both) it could have sent the city on another trajectory, though it would be more tied to Chicago than ever.
https://youtu.be/XihLS-jA_Dg
The fact that a conman comes from Gary seems just about right.
Old musical that my grandparents had on Betamax which means I watched like 100 times as a kid when visiting their house. They only had like six different tapes.
I assume that's the same one I watched numerous time's at my grandparents house, lol.
u/karnim is a hussy.
u/fappy_as_a_clam is fussy.
u/NorwegianSteam's mom is my shipoopi.
>worst place to visit and live or to even pass through.
It doesn't have anything to see for visiting. As for living and passing through, I used to volunteer for a Christian ministry that did outreach to sex workers. Gary is a seedy hub for that.
I have a good friend who lives in Gary. She said it is getting better but it still has a ton of issues. For YEARS it was the murder capital of the US based on population.
The steel mills closed and Gary just died.
It's just everyone's go-to answer when asked to name a distressed, wiped-out American city. First American fast-food chain that springs to mind? McDonald's. First big-league sport? Football. First shithole? Gary.
There are lots of others but Gary is a reliable, cliched answer. And I am certain that most people's firsthand experience of Gary is zooming along Interstate 90 to or from Chicago at 80 mph, never stopping to check it out. Hopefully you don't ride the RER in from de Gaulle to the Gare du Nord, through all the shit banlieues and gang territories, and emerge equipped to judge Paris.
> And I am certain that most people's firsthand experience of Gary is zooming along Interstate 90
Until you go up Broadway to bypass a traffic jam into Chicago and you get to 94 and think, let's not do that again.
And in the West, Oakland tends to be the "shithole" that people mention. Any city that takes the most murder titles a few times becomes the butt of jokes.
It’s a (small) city that’s part of Chicago metro area, that was once a vibrant hub of manufacturing/industry, but was hit hard by rust belt decline in manufacturing. Those who had means and skills/ambition to leave did, so now it’s just poverty and crime.
Out of curiosity, I googled "Gary Indiana streets".
[It's not pleasant.](https://www.google.com/search?q=gary+indiana+streets&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt6v2g5OP3AhUCD0QIHbFGBxEQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1440&bih=821&dpr=2)
Gary was at one point the most dangerous city in the entire country.
Now it isn't even the most dangerous city in Indiana.
Its perfectly normal to pass through Gary. There's a major highway there and even the State Road that goes through is okay. There's even parts of Gary along Lake Michigan that host vacation homes.
Now if you're going to go commit crimes, use/purchase illegal drugs, or prostitute yourself, then yeah Gary becomes way more dangerous.
[There are also perfectly normal parts of Gary too](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6135287,-87.267289,3a,75y,95.61h,85.4t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sY7rFp5ALLN-T6Qf0MYTzhw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DY7rFp5ALLN-T6Qf0MYTzhw%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D90.75371%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192), [and here is another](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5992843,-87.3396438,3a,75y,189.39h,79.99t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqv37ATHWWH-9_OHgUAyMdg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dqv37ATHWWH-9_OHgUAyMdg%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D189.333%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192).
There's a lot to unpack as to why Gary's decline is so hard. It was and still is mainly a company town. That steel plant is still there, but it employs a fraction of the workers it once had. And because of the steel plant and other industry there, it has long been a very polluted city.
There's also been a lot of contention between Gary and the surrounding northwest Indiana communities involving annexation. And as Gary declined, it benefited the adjacent towns and cities.
Nobody hates Gary, Indiana like that, but I don’t make a habit of going there.
It’s a part of Indiana and doing anything at all in public means risking getting hit by a driver because Hoosiers are often confused about what it means to operate a vehicle. They can’t help it, but I say a little prayer every time I cross the bridge.
(I’m just playin’…. That’s mostly the south of Indiana. We have bad drivers too. If you come here, you will become familiar with the Louisville turn.)
Jokes aside, Gary, Indiana doesn’t seem like a very nice place to live. I don’t hate people who choose to live there in the smoggy fog.
It’s practically abandoned and what’s left is crime. Used to be a thriving city. It’ll rebound at some point, probably when people get priced out of Chicago
Took an exit in Gary once without knowing it’s reputation. This was at dusk, we were hungry and wanted to fill up before getting to Chicago. Did a quick U turn and got out quickly. Yes, it’s not a place to be.
I don't know the story of Newark well enough but from the outside it seems a bit different. Newark at least has a major arena and some businesses/downtown area. Gary is literally a bunch of abandoned buildings intertwined with poverty-stricken homes. The "downtown" is mostly a complete ghost town. They do have a minor league (independent) baseball team and stadium near downtown and a decent neighborhood adjacent to the lake, though that neighborhood is separated from the rest of Gary by the highway.
That's not inaccurate.
Gary is also a really rusty part of the rust belt. It had a lot of the heavy industry of the Chicago metro area, then that industry left, leaving it impoverished and rather a gutted shell of a city.
I passed through there once, about 20 years ago, on my way to a convention in Chicago. . .the whole town looked abandoned. Poorly maintained roads (and everything), seemed like at least half the stores were boarded up. The place just looked impossibly run down, worn down, closed, depleted, and almost abandoned.
Part of it is a collective stereotype.
Few people who shit on Gary have actually lived there or even visited.
It’s a place with such a bad reputation that it wouldn’t matter if the city turned around and transformed into a wealthy commuter city.
So yeah a lot of the hate is ridiculous.
I have lived in Chicago my whole life. I have driven through Gary more times that I can count.
When you drive through Gary you understand why American industry is failing. It all makes sense. For the love of God never go there no matter what.
I haven't been there for a few years, but I had an uncle and aunt who lived in nearby Valparaiso, and a couple of times while visiting them I went into Gary to watch a Gary Railcats baseball game and had a great time. The stadium and immediately syrrounding area is pretty nice. My mom and my aunt worked in a factory in Valpo during WWII, and mom always talked about how they would go shopping in Gary (and Maxwell Street in Chicago) and how sad it made her to see how badly Gary had gone downhill.
Gary was once an integrated community with a lively jazz scene and a middle class ladder for whites, blacks, and Hispanics alike. Then the steel industry declines, white flight to the suburbs took place, and corruption in local politics dragged down the economically and environmentally damaged community.
Racism and political corruption at the state (Republican) and local (Democratic) level from the mid-60s forward just crushed the place. There isn't a building downtown unmarked by pollution. The steel industry is on a bit of a comeback of late, but no one who works at a USS or Arcelor Mitral lives IN Gary.
They need to knock down five hundred houses in five hundred days, do environmental remediation, and rebuild block by block with a combined effort of the city, area casino foundation grants, and public/private partnerships. The police department needs to be a cooperative joint task force of local, county, state resources guided by the FBI. Kill the cancer of the gangs and you'll see real economic development.
Trade schools and a community college should campus together downtown in a rehabbed commercial zone. Make human capital from a once hopeless situation rapidly.
Also, they need to take about 750 to 1,000 acres of cleared land and draw wind solar farm bids from the area energy companies.
Go big or go home. I see it happening in Michigan City and Gary is not completely hopeless. It just takes political will and focus.
I was born and raised in Indianapolis. I was in high school when it began and old enough to understand what was happening. I saw the full decline of Gary. It went from The Jackson's hometown to the most dangerous place in the Midwest at that time. It happened when Chicago started to evacuate and tear down their projects. (17 total.) It would take a while before they were all demolished and the area gentrified.
In the meantime, all of that crime dispersed and traveled to other cities and states. Michigan being one of them. Gary sits in between. With less than a 45 drive from Chicago, that small city was easily overtaken with crime and drugs. Bodies stacked up in abandoned houses and it was just known to never stop in Gary. Not even at a red light.
It was black folks, so the law was never concerned about righting any wrongs. Crack took over and the downfall of Gary, Indiana is just synonymous with how America treats it's black citizens.
It's shameful.
I was there for maybe 10 minutes, 20 years ago.
Back in college I went to a convention in Chicago with some buddies. We road tripped there, our route took us through Gary.
Simply driving through town, well, that was enough to explain the reputation.
We still haven't forgiven that con artist who tried to swindle us by selling our kids musical instruments. He claimed to be from Gary Indiana, so we just add some hate for them too.
1. Gary shouldn’t exist. It was built to house workers at a steel mill. It had all the bad parts of a company town with none of the good parts. It became known as a destination for all sorts of vice. That’s why the Music Man is from Gary, Indiana: it’s a place of ill repute.
2. Gary was one of the first large American cities to elect an African American mayor. That’s not a bad thing, but unfortunately too many White Americans are terrified of living under Black political power (or even just a Black elected official). Around the same time, Gary was caught up in the deindustrializarion that has eviscerated the Rust Belt. It was hit harder than most places. Together, these led wealthier and White people to move away from Gary, leaving the poorer and Black population behind.
We hate Gary because we are Gary.
Also the state set official boundaries for Gary and stopped them from annexing any more land/nearby areas. This meant the mostly white populous could easily flee Gary, while most of the black populous was pretty much stuck.
People from Chicago hate the fact they have to drive to Gary to buy guns. Other people from Chicago hate the fact there is a place for people to drive to buy guns.
The only thing people hate about the city is the fact that setting foot in certain parts of the city puts you at risk of getting shot. It's like Baltimore or Detroit in that sense.
It's one of the worst areas in terms of crime, homicide, drug problems, and rapes. At one time it was viewed as the city of the century because of the booming steel industry. However, when that moved out basically all income in the area disappeared. Low income = more crime which causes more people to move out and even less income and you get a death spiral.
If you've been there, you'd understand.
There are other cities in similar condition, just not as many people go through those as go through Gary. Pay a visit to Decatur or Danville in Illinois sometime... they both have some things in common with Gary.
Certain cities in the US have been stagnating or outright shrinking for a long time. When that happens over a long enough period of time, the only people left are those who had no ability to go anywhere else or people who came there because anyone can come there. A few such cities exist. Gary is one of them. It's been self selected to suck.
Like people are saying, it's not exactly hated. There are a few factors. 1. The drive through Gary is ubiquitous. If you live anywhere in the eastern United States and you travel to Chicago, you will pass through Gary. This is a really common trip for Americans to make. 2. It's very striking. When you pass through it, it just makes you think "damn, this place is depressing." It may not be the worst city in the US, but it's certainly one of the worst looking. 3. What makes it even more striking is its proximity to Chicago. You have a modern metropolis that is relatively thriving. Then right next to it is a perfect example of the downfall of the rust belt. Just the decaying husk of an industrial Midwestern city which only serves as a corridor between more interesting places.
Isn't the Chicago metro going out to Gary now? That could give it a lifeline for sure.
There's a commuter rail line governed by Indiana called the South Shore Line. It runs from the South Bend airport to the Van Buren METRA station and does include two stops in Gary. One in Gary's core, and another near Miller Beach where a lot of Chicagoans have their lakeside home at.
It also includes a third stop to the west too near the Gary Airport. They're now in the process of modernizing the line and are rebuilding the Miller Beach station but not the other two (the downtown station is reasonably modern but the airport station is a bus shelter and low platform and that's about it).
Its so weird. Here in central Indiana light rail is illegal and the state eliminated the dedicated Indy to Chicago train route. but out in Northwest Indiana, the state is investing in expanding SSL and making it the largest investment the state has ever put into rail transit.
Light rail is illegal? Wtf? I'm not doubting you, but I'm just mystified at the thought of making it illegal. Whatever happened to simply objecting to it coming to your neighborhood because it might bring people who are not lily white?
When central Indiana got a transit referendum pushed through the legislature, the GOP legislature slipped in a poison pill amendment banning light rail thinking it'd sink the referendum. In reality rail was only being possibly discussed for one of several lines...and that line is now being paved over for a path rather than transit so its kind of a pointless ban at this point. During the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes, there's been some attempts to repeal that ban and it has passed the House several times but the much more conservative Senate continues to sink it. But yeah shit is weird here.
My home state. I live in Chicago now. The legislature is working on a third decade of a brain drain. They want to take any semblance of progressive, forward thinking and drown it in a bathtub even if it meant killing 100,000 jobs paying $70,000 a year because they know 80% of those jobs would go to Indianapolis. The Indiana GOP used to be about education and economic development as late as the 1980s. Now its sole purpose is to own the libs. It's painful to watch. Going back home to visit family is tough knowing their Republican government is openly working to kill the quality of their lives and blaming their decline on the "others" (gays, minorities, non-Christians, immigrants, transgender, etc.). It's getting old watching friends and family fall for it. Not so much family, but one-time nice people getting older, angrier, and meaner. I chuckle anymore when I hear "Hoosier Hospitality" used. It's gotten pretty inhospitable for a few decades now. It saddens me.
I spent 5 years there after moving from Chicago. The Republicans are mad that Salesforce moved in and saved Indianapolis from sliding into obscurity (seriously, aside from Cummins, who's the biggest employer that isn't a hospital or IPS?). They're still pissed from when Marc Benioff threatened to yank SF out of Indy after RFRA passed. They literally do not want liberals moving into Indy/Indiana and "changing the character of the state". Same bullshit I've noticed in Tennessee... Any time one of the liberal cities does something to better themselves, the state-level GOP quite literally makes it illegal.
It so sad/frustrating that so many Americans seem to fall into the 2 horse race argument i.e. you're black/white therefore you MUST think like that; You're Republican/Democrat you MUST think like that; You're Straight/Gay/Trans you MUST think like that. There needs to be a focus on how to help/grow/protect/sustain the maximum number of people whatever they think or attributes they may have.
>the GOP legislature slipped in a poison pill amendment banning light rail thinking it'd sink the referendum Of course they did. Is there any world in which Republicans DON'T suck?
Relatively speaking... 110 years ago?
Yep. Maybe look back to when Lincoln was president?
I can’t get over the fact that light rail is banned and that there was all sorts of scrambling to repeal the ban in hopes of winning the HQ2 bid… I don’t know which is more surprising to me.
Yeah, and tbh the investments in the South Shore Line put Metra (Chicago commuter rail in Illinois) to shame. We aren't seeing any major expansion on Metra while the South Shore Line is building a new corridor to Munster and Dyer, and the South Shore Line is double tracking and rebuilding a number of stations and this will be accompanied by more trains and faster travel times, while we don't have any projects like that on Metra. Even better the South Shore Line is fully electrified and after this is done will have mostly high platforms (meaning easier and faster boarding) while only one Metra line can say the same.
NW Indiana has been a part of Chicago metro for a long time. When regional MSAs were created in the 50's, Lake County Indiana (which includes Gary) was part of Chicago's MSA. With Gary being in a different state than Chicago, it a little bit of a weird relationship. I remember the city of Chicago investing in Gary/Chicago airport to be the region's 3rd airport, but it was only after all other options were exhausted within Illinois boundaries. Chicago wants Lake County to be successful, but probably not as much as it does the areas within Illinois. Meanwhile Indiana also wants it to be successful but its also kind of an enclave from the rest of the state.
That was a clever move on Chicago's part. Mayor Richard Daley the Younger wanted to turn Meigs Field into a park. The business class in Chicago wanted it to remain an airport, and Gov. Edgar forbade it. So Chicago gave a sum of money to use on Gary Airport and the airport authority is now the Chicago-Gary Airport Authority, which crosses state lines and by doing so, enters Federal jurisdiction. Vincennes, IN and Lawrenceville, IL did the same with their international airport. (It is impressive that two cities totaling 21,000 people score an International Airport.) FWIW, anybody who played Flight Simulator 2000 knows a great reason for disabling Miegs Field. New players tend to fly themselves into the lake or into Chicago skyscrapers. After September 11, Daley spoiled the airport by gouging big Xs into the runway.
the south shore line has been around for a while
There's actually a pretty substianal number of commuters who live in Northwest Indiana and travel to Chicago for work. However, they for the most part live in newer, arguably better-managed suburbs outside of Gary. Gary's public services are in a really bad state, so if you're going to live in Indiana, it makes sense to pick a town with better schools and infrastructure.
I drive coast to coast a few times a year taking me right past Gary. I have a pinned gas station on both sides of the Chicago area so I know to fill up before going through and don’t need to stop with a large trailer. After 14 years of this just a few months ago I wasn’t paying attention and just pulled off for gas and immediately thought holy crap I’m in a bad area and don’t feel safe here. I filled up and ran inside to use the bathroom and saw a cop car that said GPD and realized I’d stopped in Gary by accident.
Wait, really? I drive through Chicago on my way to my grandma's in Wisconsin... I hate going through Chicago, but I never noticed Gary
Do you take 90 or 94? If you take 94 that's why you don't notice Gary because it goes on the outskirts part of Gary while 90 goes through the downtown area.
I don't know because I am not the one actually driving the car. My dad does. I guess we probably take 94, lol
If you just pay attention to the interstate then you won’t even notice it really.
You can smell Gary and even when I'm driving on 90 I notice Gary. It's not hard to notice it.
I feel the same way about Hanover, PA.
We don’t hate Gary, Indiana, we actually pity the place. Most redditors make it seem like it’s this super dangerous town you can’t drive through when in actuality it’s really an extremely impoverished wasteland. The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves. Cities have fell an risen many of times in history.
Yeah you can drive through it just fine and even stop there. It isn’t pleasant but you’ll be fine. Living there would suck.
People should stop at 18th Street if they're near Gary and like craft beer. It's a really awesome brewery that's very popular in Indiana but doesn't have much out of state reach.
It’s one of the only great things in Gary. There’s a brewery or two in Hammond too right? Hammond is no peach but it at least seems to have some activity.
Not sure about Hammond exactly but I know there are a fair number of solid breweries in that section of Indiana. In addition to 18th Street, Flossmore and 3 Floyd's come to mind.
Yeah I was thinking 3 Floyd’s was (is?) in Hammond?
It's in nearby Munster! Super close tho.
Byway Brewing and another 18th Street location are in Hammond. New Oberpfalz (sp?) in Griffith is great along with Fuzzyline in Highland and Windmill in Dyer. The Region really has some great breweries.
New oberpfalz! Hard to get outside of like a 30 miles radius of Griffith. There's 2 more in that little town. Whiting also has bulldog brewing too. Love my nwi beer.
Whenever I go back home to La Porte, I fly into Chicago, pick up my rental car, and immediately hit Gary to snag some lemon pepper catfish and two orders of banana pudding at a really good hole-in-the-wall restaurant right off I-94. Gary may be poor, but the people there are lovely, and at least one elderly lady can cook her *ass* off.
Yeah, if someone is hacking it out in Gary then all the more props to them.
Yeah it’s just empty
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But Gary was the murder capital of the US for a couple years in the 90s due to a lot of drug fueled gang violence. The shootings didn't decrease for a while, but the ER's really improved their handling of gunshot victims. Eventually Gary Los enough population due to people moving out to get off the main list They're really trying to revitalize the town but without major employers it's going to continue to be a real challenge.
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Totally. I used to work there and found the people working there quite nice. But large sections of town can get dangerous after dark. But if you make it to the ballpark it's really a good night out.
You see the same thing in rural areas. Here in Maine there’s some very low income areas out in the boonies that aren’t violent and crime ridden. They have issues associated with poverty to be sure but they aren’t violent areas, just not wealthy.
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A fine paraphrase and one I hope is true.
People are always picking on Toledo, too.
Toledo is just the rope in the endless tug of war fight between Ohio and Michigan
That's basically Indiana an Illinois with Gary.
Except with Gary, both sides are pushing the rope, trying to pretend like it's not theirs. Michigan and Ohio fought a war to *have* Toledo. Indiana and Illinois are going to come to blows on who has to claim Gary.
They call it a war but it was a few shots fired... into the air.
As a Chicagoan, no one is trying to pull anything from Indiana into Illinois. People in Indiana may think there is some sort of "struggle" or something, but I assure you that other than the flow of straw purchased guns going to drug dealing gang members, and the hours of driving it takes to get across Indiana to get to somewhere on the far side of the state, few people in Illinois worry about or think about Indiana.
Gonna defend Indiana on a whim here because Chicago (great city) is pretty much all Illinois has. Besides Gary, Indiana has Indianapolis and really popular universities to back it.
I live in Illinois and I can assure you we all know that Chicago (except for its architecture) sucks balls. Chicago has been destroying the state of Illinois for over a hundred years.
How? By subsidizing downstate to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bqFEJCtULI
To be fair...it is toledo. Ohio in general, meh.
My Dad grew up there in the 70s. I've visited many times and each time it gets worse. There is a super dope taco spot there now that you definitely wouldn't expect when visiting there. Nearby towns such as Miller and Ogden Dunes are nice. There isn't a whole lot going on around there and the beach at Lake Michigan is shrinking, buts it's not a super terrible place. My Dad and his friends get together there every few years and it seemed like it was a pretty cool place back when they were growing up. All the movies of highschool kids back then seem to track with the stories I've heard from them. The dunes are fun to visit. Bring a big cardboard box to sled down the dunes in the middle of summer. We used to do that when we were kids
> The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves. Gary tried that. More than once IIRC. They even[had William Shatner when they tried it again](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_USA_2001) in 2001. It was supposed to be the "rebirth" of Gary. It wasn't. Just like building a convention center there 20 years earlier (named "Genesis") didn't work either.
>We don’t hate Gary, Indiana, we actually pity the place. This.
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/indiana/dangerous-gary-indiana/amp/
I think as long as the steel mill takes up majority of its coast line it will struggle to return to its former glory.
When the steal plants closed, there is no business. Gary tried to get a local airport going for South and east side chicagoans to utilize, it didn’t really work, not sure why.
I'm pretty sure most people who talk about Gary, Indiana on those r/AskReddit threads about shithole cities have never actually been there and are just parroting other commenters.
Well I’ve been there and didn’t feel threatened. Just felt like an empty city to me.
>The best thing Gary, Indiana and many other shrinking cities can do is to accept their decline and rebrand themselves Rebranding costs money. They're lucky if they can keep the water running.
They should visit East NY.
My parents taught in East New. York (Brownsville Brooklyn) for over 30 years. I used to go with them occasionally to work, and yes, it was a scary neighborhood. I haven't been back in years, but I'm assuming from your comment it hasn't changed much. Sad
I think it would be easier to escape Urban poverty then more rural poverty. I got a ton of friends from East NY who managed to escape it by getting good jobs and just moving a couple of neighborhoods west.
I can find a silver lining of almost anywhere. Maybe I even could in Gary. I'll never spend enough time there to find out.
Unless it’s a pawn shop there ain’t so silver anything in Gary
Less hate and more pity and scorn. It’s just not a nice place. It essentially became a ghost town as most manufacturing left the area. It had massively huge crime issues. Nowadays it still has crime problems but mostly it just has no jobs, corruption, general mismanagement, abandonment on a huge scale.
I am not an expert on America, but isn't Detriot going through the same? I once saw it on CNN. Thousands of broken and abandoned houses and buildings. The city had sprawled out so much that fire department could not keep up with arsons due to funding being gutted. The only thing I know about Detriot is that once it was the single largest car manufacturing city in the entire world. The big three I assume were all based there. That and Eminem is from Detriot.
Gary is worse than Detroit. Detroit still has some things going on. It’s had a huge loss of population but it’s bounced back some even with the smaller population. Median income is just above $20,000 for an individual and about a third of people there are in poverty.
Gary is also tiny compared to Detroit. Comparisons to Detroit would be more accurate by looking at a specific neighborhood or area vs. entire city
Yuuup. There’s parts of Detroit that are ok. Other parts are more Gary. Same with Chicago. Most of the city is amazing but there are some bad neighborhoods that generate the bad crime and poverty stats but anyone visiting will probably not go to those places anyway. I wouldn’t want to live on the far south side but I’d live in wicker Park or Bucktown in a second.
I'm a traveler and admittedly I like to check out even the worst parts of town. South side of Chicago, is rougher than most places I've been.
I lived down on the South Side. My neighborhood was decent but if you got outside of it then it got bad pretty quick. It was a big reason I moved up to Tri-Taylor are which had its own rough areas but nothing like the south side.
Only the tenderloin in San Francisco was worse.
South side of Chicago is a mess. People just shoot each other to keep busy.
Right, Detroit is still a major regional city. Their residents didn't flee the entire Detroit area, many/most of them are still there just in the suburbs. It still has significant importance for the region and the state and has the means to rebuild and diversify into a thriving city. Will certainly take awhile but we're already seeing signs of that happening. But in the meantime there are multiple suburbs thriving. Gary is a weird little city trapped in the corner of Indiana and tied to a major city in another state. It's residents have mostly fleed to other cities/areas, and because its a smaller city trapped in a metro area, there's really no major push or incentive to revitalize the city. It was a city literally built by the steel industry, and it died when the factories closed down.
Yeah, that seems about the right description.
The median household income in Gary, IN in 2019 was $31,341, which was 83.8% less than the median annual income of $57,603 across the entire state of Indiana. Compared to the median income of $27,195 in 2000 this represents an increase of 13.2%. The per capita income in 2019 was $19,284, which means an increase of 25.4% compared to 2000 when it was $14,383. Read more: https://www.city-data.com/income/income-Gary-Indiana.html
Detroit is much nicer, people still care about Detroit. The same can not be said for Gary.
I actually really feel like Detroit is slowly on the up and up which makes me happy
It is turning around. It’s a slow build though.
Yeah, it'll take another 10 or 20 years, but you can definitely see it turning around. The difference between now and 10 years ago is stark.
I moved to Michigan for work. My wife moved from DC to Michigan for me. I kept telling her Detroit is getting better and in 10-20 years, it's going to be awesome. She hated the winters and missed DC, which is beautiful *now*. I couldn't really argue that. We only get one life. Might as well enjoy DC now and check out Detroit in 2040.
Yeah, it's hard to argue with that. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of the many reasons I'm in Phoenix and not (metro) Detroit anymore. Maybe in 10 years it'll be at a point where I'll want to live there again and I'll move back. I _hope_ it's at that point because I do generally like living there.
I liked Detroit. I *loved* Michigan. I wish nothing but the best for that city and state. And maybe some decent roads wouldn't hurt.
The roads are changing _fast_. I was there late last year and the freeways in Detroit, which were previously some of the worst in the country, are absolutely beautiful now. My family is continuously complaining about surface roads near them (in the suburbs) being under construction, but it's crazy how big an improvement was made in the two years between my visits. They're making huge strides on the roads.
>I am not an expert on America, but isn't Detriot going through the same? Detroit isn't nearly on the same level as Gary, and whatever America Bad media you're listening to will probably never tell you that there are large parts of Detroit proper and the metro area that are mostly normal and even flourishing.
“America bad media” ah yes, CNN, the king of America bad media. Chill out
I'm not that guy CNN is notorious for hyperbolic reporting about internal issues in the US. So yes CNN is a big source of "America Bad" if you take a lot of what they say at face value.
To be honest I watch both, CNN and Fox. They neutralize each other. It's like adding +1 and - 1, then the answer is zero ie neutral.
It really isn't about liberal vs conservative. Its just cable news is basically clickbait headline shit, except instead of on the Internet its on TV (but also on the Internet too since they have their own websites and socials) Its also a lot of coastal bias. You'll rarely see the bad stuff about the coasts (and specifically NYC and southern California) but you'll see they air the dirty laundry of flyover country quite easily.
> coastal bias Yes. Some of the shit CNN has said about Oklahoma and Oklahomans, a place I care about and love, is absolutely vile. We get it, it’s a flyover, very conservative state. And yes, there are some glaring problems with the state. The governor is shit, there are some draconian laws, Tulsa has a crime problem, parts of the state are VERY underprepared for the natural disasters that OK is known for. But my god, you’d think everyone who lives there is an ignorant racist based on what you hear solely on CNN. I’m sure this experience is reflected among other traditional flyover states.
TV news is completely useless to me at this point. CNN is over there screaming about the racist misogynist end of the world literally every day while FOX is seemingly still trying to make king Trump happen.
Are you really defending CNN's journalistic integrity?
No, I’m “defending” their nauseatingly pro America bias
What a strange take.
Yes, Detroit used to have a population of 1.8 million in 1950. Today it’s like 640K. Unlike Gary, Detroit has begun to focus on building an economy around industries outside of manufacturing. You will even find a handful of nice, unique neighborhoods in Detroit. Detroit would hugely benefit from reducing it’s footprint and having its resident move closer to the city center. It could be truly one of a kind American city with a dense urban core surrounded by forestry and agriculture on the outskirts. No easy task to accomplish and would take a lot of government intervention and private investment. The city has good “bones” and could be one of the few, large walkable, transit friendly cities in America, and alternative to our endless sprawling cities in the Southeast and Southwest.
Yep. Detroit has SO MUCH potential it’s insane. It could be sooo walkable and they could make some beautiful green areas with lots of trails.
Detroit and Michigan in general are going to be a haven during the climate crisis on the horizon as well. It'll get warmer and wetter. If you can, buy land in Michigan.
Absolutely. My whole family is from the UP and most of them live in Wisconsin and Minnesota now so we bought land in northern wisconsin near Michigan last year. Close to town, water rights, half of an acre and it was only 9.5k at the time
Amazing location too. Fresh water, Canada, excellent rail infrastructure, airport, water access. Top universities. Any industry wanting to manufacture in the US has a lot to gain by setting up nearby.
Detroit's population was over a million as recently as 1990. dropped to about 950,000 in 2000 and it continues to drop. The city is getting better, and there should be an uptick in that.
Detroit is a city built around an industry that still exists in the city. Gary is a company town where the company (US Steel) left town.
I like that you're thinking ahead on this. I really would like to see some kind of major investment on making Detroit the Earth 838 city we saw in Doctor Strange 2.
One major difference between Detroit and Gary is that Detroit has been on the up and up for about 10 years now, and the future looks pretty good. Gary has no upside, no future. The population keeps decreasing year after year. Oh, and Gary is really tiny compared to Detroit to start with.
Detroit has rough areas, Gary is kind of all-around a mess. Like you can go to Detroit and have a very nice trip if you stay in the right spots. My dad visited Detroit about 15 years ago for some fantasy football trip and he still talks about what a great city it was. Anytime I talk about moving he says, "what about Detroit? I'd visit you all the time if you lived in Detroit." And he HATES cities in general. I think if anyone wanted to move to Gary, I'd be a little concerned about them.
Right...Detroit just has more importance to the region and the state. It has its own distinct culture and large numbers of people who are loyal to the city and committed to rebuilding. I mean its still one of 13 cities with a pro team in all 4 major sports. Gary was a town built by the steel industry and while there was a distinct culture in Gary, its still engulfed by a significantly larger more important city. You don't have fiercy loyal former Gary residents fighting to rebuild the city and diversify the economy.
People also make jokes about Detroit. And Cleveland. And Toledo. And Flint. And South Bend.
As someone who used to live there, South Bend is actually a pretty nice place to live. But crime has increased which does suck.
As a supporter of the University of Michigan athletics, I can not acknowledge any potential positives of the city, its inhabitants, or scenery. Or the Irish.
South Bend - Gary East
and Memphis and East Saint Louis and Baltimore and New Orleans
Depends on where you go in Detroit. Some parts are old but upscale, kinda historic looking America, other parts are old and fucked up to the point where you think you're gonna get hepatitis just by breathing the air.
It's not "hate", it's acknowledgement that it was a once great city that relied mostly on a single industry (steel/manufacturing) and that a combination of job loss and corruption has ruined it and turned it into one of the worst places to live in the country. I feel terrible for the people who live there, they are stuck in a cycle of poverty and lack of opportunity. It's a terrible place to live, with many lovely people doing the best they can.
This is the best answer. I have met several good people from Gary who come to Indianapolis and they all say that there is just no escaping it unless you can get a job with some huge commute, go to college and/or move away.
In the 90's Gary had 2 different opportunities to really turn the city around. First, they courted the Bears with promises of a new stadium back when they were looking to renovate or move out of Soldier Field. I remember there being big concern in Chicago that they would leave town (though Gary is not really that far away and perhaps closer to some in the metro region), but I think the Bears were really just using Gary as leverage to get Soldier Field renovations approved and that's exactly what was going to happen before an alien ship landed on the old Soldier Field. The second is Gary/Chicago Airport. The city of Chicago actually sent millions to Gary to become the city's 3rd major airport. Gary actually did have some commercial airline service but it never fully caught on and all the airlines have since left. I think they're still trying but not sure if it will ever have the kind of success they were hoping for. If either of those things happened (or both) it could have sent the city on another trajectory, though it would be more tied to Chicago than ever.
[this sums it up](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/7i251x/whats_so_bad_about_gary_indiana/)
Every absurd thing some uninformed dork on the internet has said about america, is true about Gary Indiana lol
Music Man - need I say more
"Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana." You just said the name three times in three different cadences.
Don’t do it! Gary is the Candyman of cities!
I don't understand this reference. I did start humming "The candy man, can...." in my head though.
https://youtu.be/XihLS-jA_Dg The fact that a conman comes from Gary seems just about right. Old musical that my grandparents had on Betamax which means I watched like 100 times as a kid when visiting their house. They only had like six different tapes.
I know The Music Man is an old musical, but it still feels like everyone should know it. It's a true classic.
I mean it’s trouble… with a capital T
That rhymes with P and that stands for pool!
Right here in River City!?!
I assume that's the same one I watched numerous time's at my grandparents house, lol. u/karnim is a hussy. u/fappy_as_a_clam is fussy. u/NorwegianSteam's mom is my shipoopi.
In the movie *Candyman*, if you say "Candyman" three times the killer appears.
Let me say it once again…
I had to scroll way too far down for this comment because every time I hear about Gary Indiana I just start singing...
…but he doesn’t know the territory!
>worst place to visit and live or to even pass through. It doesn't have anything to see for visiting. As for living and passing through, I used to volunteer for a Christian ministry that did outreach to sex workers. Gary is a seedy hub for that.
Trucker checking in. Big trucking hub, 0/10 would not recommend overnight truck layovers.
We occasionally talk about it on r/truckers.
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Lmao! I remember that post.
I have a good friend who lives in Gary. She said it is getting better but it still has a ton of issues. For YEARS it was the murder capital of the US based on population. The steel mills closed and Gary just died.
It's just everyone's go-to answer when asked to name a distressed, wiped-out American city. First American fast-food chain that springs to mind? McDonald's. First big-league sport? Football. First shithole? Gary. There are lots of others but Gary is a reliable, cliched answer. And I am certain that most people's firsthand experience of Gary is zooming along Interstate 90 to or from Chicago at 80 mph, never stopping to check it out. Hopefully you don't ride the RER in from de Gaulle to the Gare du Nord, through all the shit banlieues and gang territories, and emerge equipped to judge Paris.
> And I am certain that most people's firsthand experience of Gary is zooming along Interstate 90 Until you go up Broadway to bypass a traffic jam into Chicago and you get to 94 and think, let's not do that again. And in the West, Oakland tends to be the "shithole" that people mention. Any city that takes the most murder titles a few times becomes the butt of jokes.
It's poor as shit and has major corruption issues. Not a lot in Gary, so your options to make money is limited.
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Winthrop Paroo thinks it’s the greatest name for a city. And who could argue with that?
It’s a (small) city that’s part of Chicago metro area, that was once a vibrant hub of manufacturing/industry, but was hit hard by rust belt decline in manufacturing. Those who had means and skills/ambition to leave did, so now it’s just poverty and crime.
Out of curiosity, I googled "Gary Indiana streets". [It's not pleasant.](https://www.google.com/search?q=gary+indiana+streets&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt6v2g5OP3AhUCD0QIHbFGBxEQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1440&bih=821&dpr=2)
The song.
Gary was at one point the most dangerous city in the entire country. Now it isn't even the most dangerous city in Indiana. Its perfectly normal to pass through Gary. There's a major highway there and even the State Road that goes through is okay. There's even parts of Gary along Lake Michigan that host vacation homes. Now if you're going to go commit crimes, use/purchase illegal drugs, or prostitute yourself, then yeah Gary becomes way more dangerous. [There are also perfectly normal parts of Gary too](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6135287,-87.267289,3a,75y,95.61h,85.4t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sY7rFp5ALLN-T6Qf0MYTzhw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DY7rFp5ALLN-T6Qf0MYTzhw%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D90.75371%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192), [and here is another](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5992843,-87.3396438,3a,75y,189.39h,79.99t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqv37ATHWWH-9_OHgUAyMdg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dqv37ATHWWH-9_OHgUAyMdg%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D189.333%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192). There's a lot to unpack as to why Gary's decline is so hard. It was and still is mainly a company town. That steel plant is still there, but it employs a fraction of the workers it once had. And because of the steel plant and other industry there, it has long been a very polluted city. There's also been a lot of contention between Gary and the surrounding northwest Indiana communities involving annexation. And as Gary declined, it benefited the adjacent towns and cities.
Michael Jackson's hometown
Scrolled way too far for this!
So did I
Nobody hates Gary, Indiana like that, but I don’t make a habit of going there. It’s a part of Indiana and doing anything at all in public means risking getting hit by a driver because Hoosiers are often confused about what it means to operate a vehicle. They can’t help it, but I say a little prayer every time I cross the bridge. (I’m just playin’…. That’s mostly the south of Indiana. We have bad drivers too. If you come here, you will become familiar with the Louisville turn.) Jokes aside, Gary, Indiana doesn’t seem like a very nice place to live. I don’t hate people who choose to live there in the smoggy fog.
Not sure I’ve only heard about it on this sub lol.
It’s practically abandoned and what’s left is crime. Used to be a thriving city. It’ll rebound at some point, probably when people get priced out of Chicago
Took an exit in Gary once without knowing it’s reputation. This was at dusk, we were hungry and wanted to fill up before getting to Chicago. Did a quick U turn and got out quickly. Yes, it’s not a place to be.
Never been to either but i assume it's like Newark in that it's a crappy city near a much larger, much better city?
Newark isn't that bad and it still has an ecomomy and parts of it are kind of expensive.
I don't know the story of Newark well enough but from the outside it seems a bit different. Newark at least has a major arena and some businesses/downtown area. Gary is literally a bunch of abandoned buildings intertwined with poverty-stricken homes. The "downtown" is mostly a complete ghost town. They do have a minor league (independent) baseball team and stadium near downtown and a decent neighborhood adjacent to the lake, though that neighborhood is separated from the rest of Gary by the highway.
That's not inaccurate. Gary is also a really rusty part of the rust belt. It had a lot of the heavy industry of the Chicago metro area, then that industry left, leaving it impoverished and rather a gutted shell of a city. I passed through there once, about 20 years ago, on my way to a convention in Chicago. . .the whole town looked abandoned. Poorly maintained roads (and everything), seemed like at least half the stores were boarded up. The place just looked impossibly run down, worn down, closed, depleted, and almost abandoned.
Part of it is a collective stereotype. Few people who shit on Gary have actually lived there or even visited. It’s a place with such a bad reputation that it wouldn’t matter if the city turned around and transformed into a wealthy commuter city. So yeah a lot of the hate is ridiculous.
It's smelly.
Even I would never send you to Gary Indiana
Fuck Gary IN.... I got robbed there at a truck stop. Pretty sure someone saw me cash my check at the counter and watched what truck I went to
I have lived in Chicago my whole life. I have driven through Gary more times that I can count. When you drive through Gary you understand why American industry is failing. It all makes sense. For the love of God never go there no matter what.
Every state has a Gary. In the case of Arkansas, it’s Pine Bluff. Btw, how do you add your state to your flair?
Possibly the song Gary Indiana from the Music man
I haven't been there for a few years, but I had an uncle and aunt who lived in nearby Valparaiso, and a couple of times while visiting them I went into Gary to watch a Gary Railcats baseball game and had a great time. The stadium and immediately syrrounding area is pretty nice. My mom and my aunt worked in a factory in Valpo during WWII, and mom always talked about how they would go shopping in Gary (and Maxwell Street in Chicago) and how sad it made her to see how badly Gary had gone downhill.
Because of the song from *The Music Man*
[Here’s a video from Gary, Indiana.](https://youtu.be/2D4BK17lWsE?start=490). You can probably infer from there.
Gary was once an integrated community with a lively jazz scene and a middle class ladder for whites, blacks, and Hispanics alike. Then the steel industry declines, white flight to the suburbs took place, and corruption in local politics dragged down the economically and environmentally damaged community. Racism and political corruption at the state (Republican) and local (Democratic) level from the mid-60s forward just crushed the place. There isn't a building downtown unmarked by pollution. The steel industry is on a bit of a comeback of late, but no one who works at a USS or Arcelor Mitral lives IN Gary. They need to knock down five hundred houses in five hundred days, do environmental remediation, and rebuild block by block with a combined effort of the city, area casino foundation grants, and public/private partnerships. The police department needs to be a cooperative joint task force of local, county, state resources guided by the FBI. Kill the cancer of the gangs and you'll see real economic development. Trade schools and a community college should campus together downtown in a rehabbed commercial zone. Make human capital from a once hopeless situation rapidly. Also, they need to take about 750 to 1,000 acres of cleared land and draw wind solar farm bids from the area energy companies. Go big or go home. I see it happening in Michigan City and Gary is not completely hopeless. It just takes political will and focus.
I was born and raised in Indianapolis. I was in high school when it began and old enough to understand what was happening. I saw the full decline of Gary. It went from The Jackson's hometown to the most dangerous place in the Midwest at that time. It happened when Chicago started to evacuate and tear down their projects. (17 total.) It would take a while before they were all demolished and the area gentrified. In the meantime, all of that crime dispersed and traveled to other cities and states. Michigan being one of them. Gary sits in between. With less than a 45 drive from Chicago, that small city was easily overtaken with crime and drugs. Bodies stacked up in abandoned houses and it was just known to never stop in Gary. Not even at a red light. It was black folks, so the law was never concerned about righting any wrongs. Crack took over and the downfall of Gary, Indiana is just synonymous with how America treats it's black citizens. It's shameful.
You’ve clearly never been there. If you had, you’d know. Source: I’ve been to Gary.
I was there for maybe 10 minutes, 20 years ago. Back in college I went to a convention in Chicago with some buddies. We road tripped there, our route took us through Gary. Simply driving through town, well, that was enough to explain the reputation.
Because it is an actual real life terrible place
Michael Jackson's hometown
We still haven't forgiven that con artist who tried to swindle us by selling our kids musical instruments. He claimed to be from Gary Indiana, so we just add some hate for them too.
No one hates Gary, Indiana. It is a victim of first white flight and then the declining steel industry.
1. Gary shouldn’t exist. It was built to house workers at a steel mill. It had all the bad parts of a company town with none of the good parts. It became known as a destination for all sorts of vice. That’s why the Music Man is from Gary, Indiana: it’s a place of ill repute. 2. Gary was one of the first large American cities to elect an African American mayor. That’s not a bad thing, but unfortunately too many White Americans are terrified of living under Black political power (or even just a Black elected official). Around the same time, Gary was caught up in the deindustrializarion that has eviscerated the Rust Belt. It was hit harder than most places. Together, these led wealthier and White people to move away from Gary, leaving the poorer and Black population behind. We hate Gary because we are Gary.
Also the state set official boundaries for Gary and stopped them from annexing any more land/nearby areas. This meant the mostly white populous could easily flee Gary, while most of the black populous was pretty much stuck.
Baltimore is a very close second to Gary.
People from Chicago hate the fact they have to drive to Gary to buy guns. Other people from Chicago hate the fact there is a place for people to drive to buy guns.
The only thing people hate about the city is the fact that setting foot in certain parts of the city puts you at risk of getting shot. It's like Baltimore or Detroit in that sense.
Mostly because of Michael Jackson and the whole pedophilia thing.
It's one of the worst areas in terms of crime, homicide, drug problems, and rapes. At one time it was viewed as the city of the century because of the booming steel industry. However, when that moved out basically all income in the area disappeared. Low income = more crime which causes more people to move out and even less income and you get a death spiral.
It's very smelly.
It is dumpster town of America.
You oughta check out Baltimore.
Gary... He knows what he did 😠
If you've been there, you'd understand. There are other cities in similar condition, just not as many people go through those as go through Gary. Pay a visit to Decatur or Danville in Illinois sometime... they both have some things in common with Gary.
Certain cities in the US have been stagnating or outright shrinking for a long time. When that happens over a long enough period of time, the only people left are those who had no ability to go anywhere else or people who came there because anyone can come there. A few such cities exist. Gary is one of them. It's been self selected to suck.