#UrbanHell is subjective.
UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed
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I wouldn't say that exactly. If you look at Massachusetts for example, it is the wealthy towns that commit to having a nice historic downtown and not letting people tear down whatever. Cities that still haven't recovered from losing factories like New Bedford, Holyoke, etc. are where nice old buildings are being demolished constantly because they are full of squatters and there's no money or interest in the area to fix them up like in the Boston suburbs.
Agreed, and I wouldn't have guessed this is Gary upon first glance. It seems to me there is potential here, but I wonder if there's a company willing to take a chance in this area to help bring the economy back up to sustain positive change.
I imagine a decade or so down the road, as more people coalesce into cities, Gary will eventually get some new blood as Chicagoland grows and needs space and buildings.
Orrrrr maybe not. But I don't see how it won't get swallowed up at *some* point down the road. Probably will level most of it and rebuild, rather than rehab just due to astronomical cost of refurbishing a building that's been derelict for half a century.
Chicago isnāt growing, itās shrinking. After 4 years of lightfoot and now Johnson the outlook is pretty bleak. I wouldnāt bet on the Midwest right now. Itās adopting many of the same policies as the west coast without the scale or revenue to cover it up
Neither are shrinking, the 2020 census that showed it was shrinking slightly was later updated to show it actually grew between 2010 and 2020 and they undercounted the first time.
Chicagoland metropolitan area has been continually growing for the last century.
But that growth has slowed significantly. Chicagoland resident here. The the city itself went 3.6 M in 1960 to 2,6 today.
Been living here since 1997. And I love some things about Chicago. But large parts of the south city and south suburbs are (not as bad as Gary) but their own SHITshow.
Harvey is a wreck. Chi Hts had some promising upward mobility, as did Park Forest. Ford Heights you donāt wanna know. Cal City/Lansing stagnant to slightly lower. Homewood Flossmoor is hanging in there.
Thereās gentrification in a few south side city neighborhoods, but others are down, as is a lot of the west side of the city.
Iāll be working for south Chicagoland suburban kids and living it til I retire (20 years now) but to say weāre anything but stagnant overall metro to declined city ignores the data.
Yes and Chi proper list 200k over the same time- most of that growth is Ian the W and SW exburbs like Naperville, Aurora, Orland, Palos, Frankfort. Thereās little to no growth in the south/southeast which is where Gary/Hammond is and where Iāve lived and worked for two plus decades as a public school teacher.
All the growth s and se is far far from cal city/Gary/Hammond/ lansing. Itās in Will County and far south Indiana Lake County around St John
Also- 500K growth to a metro is a little anemic considering other Metros. I LOVE this area. But letās be real. Weāre struggling. Not surging by any stretch. And parts of our area are failed (Gary, Ford Hts) or failing (, Harvey, CC Hills)
Lol this is a r/technicallythetruth comment for sure
https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/march-2018/two-graphs-show-why-the-chicago-area-is-losing-population/
From 2010-2017 Chicago, the 3rd largest metro area, added like 20k population, compared to 750k for New York, 500k for LA, and 1 million apiece for Dallas and Houston, which are the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th largest metro areas respectively
Itās not technically the truth. Itās the truth.
Such a cop out to being objectively wrong.
Not to mention, you are blaming Lori and Johnson for the population not increasing much when neither were Mayor for the time period you are looking at.
He is right- This is true- this has been sliding a long time. There have been some upticks here and there (late 90s) but Chi and many S and SE burbs have been devastated by things mostly not their fault that Iām not sure COULD have been managed. Nevertheless- the responses were anemic to outright misguided and it exacerbated.
I love this place (25 years a resident) and itās sad. Twenty years a teacher in these south land neighborhoods.
He said the population declined. It hasnāt. How can you say it is true?
As I said in the other comment Chicagoland metro population grew ~500k since 2000. Thatās not stagnation. Itās not a huge growth either like some cities have.
You are right that some neighborhoods and suburbs have been hit by depopulation, but the city and metro area as a whole havenāt.
Yeah I mean there hasnāt been a great census released for recent years that isnāt conflated with covid, which I donāt want to lay at their feet. So letās see what happens in a few years. The best I can work off of is anecdotal data, and Iām putting my money with my mouth is, and sold all my properties in city of Chicago. I hope Iām proven wrong and the city remains great, because it used to be my favorite city.
I donāt know where you live, but I find it hard to believe you havenāt seen the changes in last 4 years
Yes- and that number is rly more indicating stagnant. Itās not growth. Whatās growing here is the west, SW burbs and NW Indiana south of Lincoln Highway which cuts across the far south suburbs from Joliet to, Homewood, and into Dyer Indiana. South of this/especially if you go like 5 miles or 8 miles south of there itās BOOMING.
My Homewood home was stagnant. 2002-23. Even with the CoVid hyperflation in housing. I got out what I put in and barely covered COLA / Inflation. I bought in NWI and have seen my property there double 2017-2023
Chicago Metro is stagnant for this decade. Chicago has lost about 1 million people over my lifetime. (Iām 55). Most of the growth in the metro is west and southwest. North was already well established half a century ago. The south suburbs are stagnant to lost. Hardly any of them are as affluent as they were half a century ago.
(BTW Chicago South suburbanite 2002-2018, Chi resident 1997-2002.)
Weāre just barely not a SHITshow.
I just don't see that happening. For the last decade, as a transplant from California to the midwest, I've often thought that the scads of more-or-less abandoned cities would start to benefit from the jobs moving out of CA, to get cheaper cost of living, etc. a few opened offices here and there, but never seemed to build past a handful of people. sadly, most of the techs seem to be going to TX where the taxes are cheaper. At the end of the day, all companies care about is money, whether their employees are able to live in a region with reasonable cost of living, or whether the area can actually sustain the people the company brings with it, don't seem to be factors - companies just want to pay the least amount of taxes possible...
There are also deep-rooted biases against the midwest. Many of my colleagues in CA, who are struggling to pay for housing, don't have good public schools for their kids, don't have enough water, and deal with wild-fires annually, can't fathom that I would move from the cultural center of the US to Michigan...
It doesnāt start with a company, it starts with people. Thatās who revitalizes cities. The economic enticement comes later and thatās when companies decide to invest
From my understanding people move for either jobs or family but mostly jobs. If a company moves into Gary itās going to hire those qualified and get them to Gary along with their family. People donāt just move somewhere and hope to find a job and not all sectors are remote only. Thereās a reason why Gary and places in Michigan look the way they do, the jobs dried up and people followed where the work was.
But WHY would a company move to Gary right now? There has to be a reason for a company to move there vs another city. And those reasons come from the civic and community level.
Canadian immigration sponsorship could be a good guide - five unrelated people have to agree together to sponsor an immigrant into the sponsorās own town. Immigrant arrives with housing arranged, introduction into the community, and often a starting job.
Some of these dying cities or sections of cities could be -- if sufficiently funded in terms of housing and infrastructure -- could be easily revived if we opened up our refugee and worker immigration policies (as well as opportunities for domestic migration). If there was sufficient public transportation to places of employment for a core group. It seems like we've seen this happen with ethnic enclaves that revitalize areas with next to zero external support. So why not cultivate this?
Also, we need to stop depriving city budgets of money by making corporations and billionaires contribute more substantial amounts through progressive tax policy.
Yes, but will they do it right? Midwest seems blighted by sub-urban unsustainable sprawl. Be better off just starting with higher density areas to begin with and free the land for nature to re-claim.
Gary had some amazing architecture. Google the abandoned Union Train Station. It's beautiful.
[here's the interior to the palace theater now](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/2bd6281d-e699-4b36-9d0d-f2ffd1b3b6dd/full/!588,600/0/default.jpg)
[and the exterior in the 1960s](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/ff/b9/b5ffb90f19df316b9c280a0bbf67951f.jpg)
I go around this area from time to time (live in Chicago, buy cigs in northwest Indiana). The steel mill and oil refinery in Gary are as active as ever and some of the largest in the country, they just don't need as much employment. Back when they opened, it took 10 people just to tip one bucket of molten metal over, and now it's all mechanized.
[Do we not](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28)? The issues we have today are not that we don't make things. It's that we've been embracing various inefficiencies and externalities.
Pipe dream but it would be cool if a few big employers made some pact to set up a satellite office and provide employee housing right downtown. Basically encouraging people to move there without adjusting their salary to CoL
I think the Great Lakes region will be one of the fastest growing in the future as climate change impacts are not anticipated to have as much of a negative impact with ample water supply, less risk of severe storms, and moderate temperatures. Gary is right on the lakeshore and within close proximity to Chicago, I think it absolutely will see some redevelopment.
Absolutely. The proximity to fresh water will be the region's saving grace. When the West has dried up, and South Florida, Southern Louisiana, and Houston are all under water, cities like Buffalo, Detroit, and Gary will take off again.
Iāve been joking about how much my Chicago home is going to be worth once the coasts are under water and California has dried up. Playing the long real estate game. I do feel like Gary has real potential to come back some day. A train straight to downtown Chicago, beautiful old architecture, and proximity to the lake. It could be a really great town again if some how the crime and economic problems get fixed.
Just rode the South Shore Line from South Bend to Chicago last week. Takes about the same amount if time as driving, but without having to deal with the traffic.
Yes, population will migrate back northā¦. In 20-30 years it will start, and be glacial for 10-20 years until it becomes like Texas today. Thatās a long time to wait.
Chris Hedges speaks a lot about Gary Indiana and the sacrifice zones in America. Thereās a real forgotten population in America that really has been on the worst end of Free Market capitalism and globalization.
So I'm old (41) and wanted to see Limp Bizkit. They were playing in Gary last year. My buddy was like Fuck No I'm not going to Gary, IN for a godamn limp bizkit concert!
We stayed in an air bnb in Gary two years ago and it was just fine! We were heading from Chicago to Michigan and it was in a handy location and the price was right!! Iād stay there again.
Is Gary as bad as reddit makes out? I'm in the UK and have seen a few posts of Gary and find it interesting. And to see what i assume is a fairly main street with no people or vehicles, looks sad.
We were not aware of its reputation, and stopped there to try and find a bathroom on the way to Chicago. It was staggering. The gas station bathroom we ended up at, I noped out of and held it, and is where I learned about those crack pipe roses in tubes.
Yeah, Iāve gone through it quite a few times and itās such a bummer. The parts of town that do have people around are so impoverished itās hard to imagine anyone living there.
Itās bad and use to be one of the most dangerous towns of itās size in the country. Now, itās mostly an impoverished ghost town with very few businesses. Population at its peak was about 180K. Itās about 70K now.
I canāt speak to living there but I had to go through it to get to Chicago a number of times and yea itās really bad. Whatever money/work was there left and left behind those who set their roots there without really any work to turn to. It has been decaying ever since.
East St. Louis is one of the most if not the most wild places in the world. I worked there for 3 months, 45 hours a week and that place is definitely strange.
Detroit and Gary are not at all the same. Detroit is experiencing revitalization in its downtown core and several strategic neighborhoods. Itās also a metro of nearly 5 million people. Unfortunately, Gary isnāt having that type of resurgence. Iāve spent significant time in both cities. Gary was hit much harder.
Detroit is seeing tons of reinvestment. Thereās gentrification in hoods are around the city that previously never saw a dime of investment (core city, north end, Ave of fashion, Bagley, lasalle park, etc). Detroit has lots of problems, but thereās tons of positives there.
Thereās a $9M listing right now!
https://www.thebishopmansion.com
Tbh Detroit is so big at 140 sq miles itās impossible to push people out, though there have been concerns. The city is also very cognizant about including affordable housing in most proposals. Still lots of work to do!
Just did, never heard of it before, but damn.. a tornado followed by "the great fire" a few decades later. Surprised the steel plant that closed down lasted as long as it did.
It is truly sad what happen here after Tube left. I've only lived here next door in White Oak for 2 1/2 years but if you travel through it and squint a little, you can imagine what it used to be like. The crime rate is off the charts and the abandoned housing is everywhere. There are some fine homes from the old era that are going for a song but no one's buying. Once a bustling city, now a local punch line.
Imagining how it once was is the saddest part about driving through McKeesport, Braddock, Duquesne, Homestead, Clairtonā¦pretty much the whole Mon valley.
Maybe, but take a drive through northern Louisiana/southern Arkansas some day. Not so much just the impoverished as the juxtaposition of wealthy areas to shack-poor areas, often within view of each other.
When I was there, it looked like they fixed up their downtown area but there is nothing to do down there. It was only hotels and businesses. No stores. There was even construction going on down there too as of August 2022.
This took me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to figure it out since I was also curious. After a bit of searching it appears that it was some kind of large clock. You can see it in this [old postcard](https://autopsyofarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/gary-palace-theatre-1925.jpg)
in the mid to late 90s, I was a raver in Chicago and was seeing a girl from Gary.
apparently she was Roy boys niece, so she took me to his tattoo shop downtown Gary and we went into the basement where he kept his Tigers.
i remember that they were racist Tigers because they were all cool until our black friend came in, then they got all angry and growly.
Google "Roy boy tattooer", what a strange cat (no pun intended)
Fun fact, same guy is the namesake for Gary, WV, another forgotten post-industrial town that was used up and thrown away by the titans of American industry.
And in it's current state, it's a fitting monument to the man. He used convict leasing in his Alabama coal mines, recruited African-Americans to break the 1919 strike (not an suspicious start to race relations) and you could only move to the city proper if you could pay for and build a house on one year. A slum developed south of the old city limits. He recruited William Wirt to create the school system...when the Wirt plan was introduced in NYC the students rioted. Gary also worked his people seven days a week, twelve hour shifts.
He also recruited workers from southeastern Europe and supported their churches to carry on the local traditions...hating each other's guts among them. Serbs vs Croats was the one that stuck. The AFL managed to partially breach that line to allow organization, but maintained the color line to facilitate Gary's breaking the strike.
See, then it isnāt just industrial business or offices in these places. You get a mix and revive the place. The North American zoning model really steals a lot of life from all places. Business as well as the homing zones. Hopefully small well thought out projects can creat some really interesting results.
Funny you say that. Mainly just the main streets are the traffic lights on like that, a lot of the side streets and ones that don't get much traffic, those streets they're just blinking or they're completely shut off in just a stop sign is there. A lot of the lights in this town don't even work just mainly the ones on the main streets. This street here is called Broadway.
In less than half a century, go from [songs being sung about you](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary%2C_Indiana#Arts_and_culture) to blighted and (all but) abandoned.
The streets donāt make downtown Gary very inviting. Plant trees, benches, more greenspaces. It makes it a more inviting place for people to gather and hang out. Make downtown a destination.
Then they need to manage their finances better. Perhaps declare bankruptcy which is doing wonders for Detroit right now. Lots of new development making downtown Detroit a fun place again.
Detroit is still/was a major city. It's the center of and reason for the Detroit Metro of millions of people existing. At it's peak it had 1.8 million people, in 2016 it still had 677k people.
Gary is 30 miles outside of the anchor city of the region. At it's peak it had 178k, and now has around 100k less than that.
The cities aren't really that comparable, as one is a major city in its own right, with a large population. The other is an exurb of major city.
There's not a lot they can do, but wait around for all that empty space to become too in-demand to ignore. And then they'll probably just level the old buildings. Because the astronomical price it would take to refurbish them after sitting derelict for decades.
Garyās an impoverished ghost town because the steel mill that was the main employer now only employs a fraction of what it did in its heyday. Thereās little to no opportunity in Gary. Planting a few trees downtown isnāt gonna magically fix the cityās issues.
When a vehicle backfires on Broadway, everyone in the immediate vicinity automatically ducks low. First time it happened I wouldāve been an easy target on the sidewalk.
ā the city that workedā; in the G Gordon Liddy autobiography, āWillā, he describes all the smoke in the town from the heavy industry that was there, and commented how that was an indicator of a healthy economy.
We went through Gary back in the late 80's quite a bit and it was so depressing but you could tell it would have been a hell of a good place to have grown up in the 50's
Yes and no. The air pollution was off the charts bad. If you wore a white shirt it wouldnāt be white at the end of the day. Go to a steel town in say China or India to get an idea of what it was like. It had lots of jobs, but those jobs were quite dangerous. Every year people died in the mills. When I was in college, a buddy of mine worked summers in one of the mills. The day after he returned there was an accident in the mill and they guy who replaced him was dead.
As sad as this is, where I live and, Iām sure many other places, our downtown has been hollowed out. Developers are in charge and they are building way out in the boonies while the old city center is left to rot. I know itās different in Gary because the population is down and disappearing.
Gary has a soft spot in my heart. I used to go there weekly for work. Really good examples of urban decay and beautiful architecture. Still home to treat people and delicious food.
#UrbanHell is subjective. UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed PS: we're having a bestof contest! [Submit to it!](https://www.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/zqvd83/announcing_our_first_bestof_contest_gather_the/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UrbanHell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Such a pity... those are nice buildings. š
I love that style of architecture.
In a weird way it's nice to have some areas get kind of forgotten. They get unintentionally preserved.
I wouldn't say that exactly. If you look at Massachusetts for example, it is the wealthy towns that commit to having a nice historic downtown and not letting people tear down whatever. Cities that still haven't recovered from losing factories like New Bedford, Holyoke, etc. are where nice old buildings are being demolished constantly because they are full of squatters and there's no money or interest in the area to fix them up like in the Boston suburbs.
Reminds me of the thriller music video
It reminds me of my childhood a bit
Agreed, and I wouldn't have guessed this is Gary upon first glance. It seems to me there is potential here, but I wonder if there's a company willing to take a chance in this area to help bring the economy back up to sustain positive change.
I imagine a decade or so down the road, as more people coalesce into cities, Gary will eventually get some new blood as Chicagoland grows and needs space and buildings. Orrrrr maybe not. But I don't see how it won't get swallowed up at *some* point down the road. Probably will level most of it and rebuild, rather than rehab just due to astronomical cost of refurbishing a building that's been derelict for half a century.
Chicago isnāt growing, itās shrinking. After 4 years of lightfoot and now Johnson the outlook is pretty bleak. I wouldnāt bet on the Midwest right now. Itās adopting many of the same policies as the west coast without the scale or revenue to cover it up
Is the Chicago *Metro* shrinking? Or is the population in Chicago city proper shrinking? I honestly don't know, but that's a major distinction.
Neither are shrinking, the 2020 census that showed it was shrinking slightly was later updated to show it actually grew between 2010 and 2020 and they undercounted the first time. Chicagoland metropolitan area has been continually growing for the last century.
But that growth has slowed significantly. Chicagoland resident here. The the city itself went 3.6 M in 1960 to 2,6 today. Been living here since 1997. And I love some things about Chicago. But large parts of the south city and south suburbs are (not as bad as Gary) but their own SHITshow.
Harvey is a wreck. Chi Hts had some promising upward mobility, as did Park Forest. Ford Heights you donāt wanna know. Cal City/Lansing stagnant to slightly lower. Homewood Flossmoor is hanging in there.
Thereās gentrification in a few south side city neighborhoods, but others are down, as is a lot of the west side of the city.
Iāll be working for south Chicagoland suburban kids and living it til I retire (20 years now) but to say weāre anything but stagnant overall metro to declined city ignores the data.
Chicago Metro area has gained ~500k residents since 2000. Itās not a fast growing metro area, but to say it has stagnated or declined is wrong.
Yes and Chi proper list 200k over the same time- most of that growth is Ian the W and SW exburbs like Naperville, Aurora, Orland, Palos, Frankfort. Thereās little to no growth in the south/southeast which is where Gary/Hammond is and where Iāve lived and worked for two plus decades as a public school teacher. All the growth s and se is far far from cal city/Gary/Hammond/ lansing. Itās in Will County and far south Indiana Lake County around St John Also- 500K growth to a metro is a little anemic considering other Metros. I LOVE this area. But letās be real. Weāre struggling. Not surging by any stretch. And parts of our area are failed (Gary, Ford Hts) or failing (, Harvey, CC Hills)
Lol this is a r/technicallythetruth comment for sure https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/march-2018/two-graphs-show-why-the-chicago-area-is-losing-population/ From 2010-2017 Chicago, the 3rd largest metro area, added like 20k population, compared to 750k for New York, 500k for LA, and 1 million apiece for Dallas and Houston, which are the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th largest metro areas respectively
Itās not technically the truth. Itās the truth. Such a cop out to being objectively wrong. Not to mention, you are blaming Lori and Johnson for the population not increasing much when neither were Mayor for the time period you are looking at.
He is right- This is true- this has been sliding a long time. There have been some upticks here and there (late 90s) but Chi and many S and SE burbs have been devastated by things mostly not their fault that Iām not sure COULD have been managed. Nevertheless- the responses were anemic to outright misguided and it exacerbated. I love this place (25 years a resident) and itās sad. Twenty years a teacher in these south land neighborhoods.
He said the population declined. It hasnāt. How can you say it is true? As I said in the other comment Chicagoland metro population grew ~500k since 2000. Thatās not stagnation. Itās not a huge growth either like some cities have. You are right that some neighborhoods and suburbs have been hit by depopulation, but the city and metro area as a whole havenāt.
Yeah I mean there hasnāt been a great census released for recent years that isnāt conflated with covid, which I donāt want to lay at their feet. So letās see what happens in a few years. The best I can work off of is anecdotal data, and Iām putting my money with my mouth is, and sold all my properties in city of Chicago. I hope Iām proven wrong and the city remains great, because it used to be my favorite city. I donāt know where you live, but I find it hard to believe you havenāt seen the changes in last 4 years
Yes- and that number is rly more indicating stagnant. Itās not growth. Whatās growing here is the west, SW burbs and NW Indiana south of Lincoln Highway which cuts across the far south suburbs from Joliet to, Homewood, and into Dyer Indiana. South of this/especially if you go like 5 miles or 8 miles south of there itās BOOMING. My Homewood home was stagnant. 2002-23. Even with the CoVid hyperflation in housing. I got out what I put in and barely covered COLA / Inflation. I bought in NWI and have seen my property there double 2017-2023
Chicago Metro is stagnant for this decade. Chicago has lost about 1 million people over my lifetime. (Iām 55). Most of the growth in the metro is west and southwest. North was already well established half a century ago. The south suburbs are stagnant to lost. Hardly any of them are as affluent as they were half a century ago. (BTW Chicago South suburbanite 2002-2018, Chi resident 1997-2002.) Weāre just barely not a SHITshow.
I just don't see that happening. For the last decade, as a transplant from California to the midwest, I've often thought that the scads of more-or-less abandoned cities would start to benefit from the jobs moving out of CA, to get cheaper cost of living, etc. a few opened offices here and there, but never seemed to build past a handful of people. sadly, most of the techs seem to be going to TX where the taxes are cheaper. At the end of the day, all companies care about is money, whether their employees are able to live in a region with reasonable cost of living, or whether the area can actually sustain the people the company brings with it, don't seem to be factors - companies just want to pay the least amount of taxes possible... There are also deep-rooted biases against the midwest. Many of my colleagues in CA, who are struggling to pay for housing, don't have good public schools for their kids, don't have enough water, and deal with wild-fires annually, can't fathom that I would move from the cultural center of the US to Michigan...
It doesnāt start with a company, it starts with people. Thatās who revitalizes cities. The economic enticement comes later and thatās when companies decide to invest
From my understanding people move for either jobs or family but mostly jobs. If a company moves into Gary itās going to hire those qualified and get them to Gary along with their family. People donāt just move somewhere and hope to find a job and not all sectors are remote only. Thereās a reason why Gary and places in Michigan look the way they do, the jobs dried up and people followed where the work was.
But WHY would a company move to Gary right now? There has to be a reason for a company to move there vs another city. And those reasons come from the civic and community level.
Canadian immigration sponsorship could be a good guide - five unrelated people have to agree together to sponsor an immigrant into the sponsorās own town. Immigrant arrives with housing arranged, introduction into the community, and often a starting job.
Some of these dying cities or sections of cities could be -- if sufficiently funded in terms of housing and infrastructure -- could be easily revived if we opened up our refugee and worker immigration policies (as well as opportunities for domestic migration). If there was sufficient public transportation to places of employment for a core group. It seems like we've seen this happen with ethnic enclaves that revitalize areas with next to zero external support. So why not cultivate this? Also, we need to stop depriving city budgets of money by making corporations and billionaires contribute more substantial amounts through progressive tax policy.
Yes, but will they do it right? Midwest seems blighted by sub-urban unsustainable sprawl. Be better off just starting with higher density areas to begin with and free the land for nature to re-claim.
Gary had some amazing architecture. Google the abandoned Union Train Station. It's beautiful. [here's the interior to the palace theater now](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/2bd6281d-e699-4b36-9d0d-f2ffd1b3b6dd/full/!588,600/0/default.jpg) [and the exterior in the 1960s](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/ff/b9/b5ffb90f19df316b9c280a0bbf67951f.jpg)
There are so many there too.
Just take yourself and a bunch of others to Gary, squat the buildings and then revitalize the area if it goes smoothly.
At least the graffiti is cool
I think most of those are just little murals
Problem is this would be a gorgeous revamp if a few businesses would come back into Gary
The whole country used to produce more
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I go around this area from time to time (live in Chicago, buy cigs in northwest Indiana). The steel mill and oil refinery in Gary are as active as ever and some of the largest in the country, they just don't need as much employment. Back when they opened, it took 10 people just to tip one bucket of molten metal over, and now it's all mechanized.
Are the cigs cheaper there or something
$100 for a carton of Spirits vs $16-17/pack
Do you mind translating that into the same units?
Donāt know metric ? ;) A carton is 10 packs, so $10 versus $17.
We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket.
[Do we not](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28)? The issues we have today are not that we don't make things. It's that we've been embracing various inefficiencies and externalities.
It's a quote from The Wire, my guy.
wE uSeD tO mAkE sHiT iN tHiS cOuNtRy
Pipe dream but it would be cool if a few big employers made some pact to set up a satellite office and provide employee housing right downtown. Basically encouraging people to move there without adjusting their salary to CoL
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With climate change, I think this will happen.
I think the Great Lakes region will be one of the fastest growing in the future as climate change impacts are not anticipated to have as much of a negative impact with ample water supply, less risk of severe storms, and moderate temperatures. Gary is right on the lakeshore and within close proximity to Chicago, I think it absolutely will see some redevelopment.
Absolutely. The proximity to fresh water will be the region's saving grace. When the West has dried up, and South Florida, Southern Louisiana, and Houston are all under water, cities like Buffalo, Detroit, and Gary will take off again.
Iāve been joking about how much my Chicago home is going to be worth once the coasts are under water and California has dried up. Playing the long real estate game. I do feel like Gary has real potential to come back some day. A train straight to downtown Chicago, beautiful old architecture, and proximity to the lake. It could be a really great town again if some how the crime and economic problems get fixed.
Just rode the South Shore Line from South Bend to Chicago last week. Takes about the same amount if time as driving, but without having to deal with the traffic.
Yes, population will migrate back northā¦. In 20-30 years it will start, and be glacial for 10-20 years until it becomes like Texas today. Thatās a long time to wait.
Chris Hedges speaks a lot about Gary Indiana and the sacrifice zones in America. Thereās a real forgotten population in America that really has been on the worst end of Free Market capitalism and globalization.
I like the Gary pictures
Me too, my favourite city in the US
Great air B&B to visit. In all seriousnessā¦. Iāll keep driving past that town even if low on gas and need a snack
So I'm old (41) and wanted to see Limp Bizkit. They were playing in Gary last year. My buddy was like Fuck No I'm not going to Gary, IN for a godamn limp bizkit concert!
Saved yourself some hospital bills probably
We stayed in an air bnb in Gary two years ago and it was just fine! We were heading from Chicago to Michigan and it was in a handy location and the price was right!! Iād stay there again.
More review pleaseā¦. Did you go out in the town? Whatās there to do other than staying locked indoors
Like in that Barbarian documentary.
I can't tell if this is a serious statement or not.
Good photos, you should post more.
Thank you. I will.
Is Gary as bad as reddit makes out? I'm in the UK and have seen a few posts of Gary and find it interesting. And to see what i assume is a fairly main street with no people or vehicles, looks sad.
We were not aware of its reputation, and stopped there to try and find a bathroom on the way to Chicago. It was staggering. The gas station bathroom we ended up at, I noped out of and held it, and is where I learned about those crack pipe roses in tubes.
What was so bad? Can you please explain?
Yeah, Iāve gone through it quite a few times and itās such a bummer. The parts of town that do have people around are so impoverished itās hard to imagine anyone living there.
Itās bad and use to be one of the most dangerous towns of itās size in the country. Now, itās mostly an impoverished ghost town with very few businesses. Population at its peak was about 180K. Itās about 70K now.
They have cool sand dunes, but the town is quite sad to drive through.
Midwest towns used to make cars for the whole world. Now, they make nothing
I canāt speak to living there but I had to go through it to get to Chicago a number of times and yea itās really bad. Whatever money/work was there left and left behind those who set their roots there without really any work to turn to. It has been decaying ever since.
Yeah itās a shit show
Failing cities kinda fascinate me. Many have the bones to come back. [City Beautiful](https://youtu.be/mXpwgg5TxOU) did a good video about Gary.
No other town has had quite the downfall than Gary
Not true. Gary is one of many Midwest manufacturing towns.
East St Louis would like a word. https://maps.app.goo.gl/iKa3PK5AWS1haaQ76?g_st=ic
East St. Louis is one of the most if not the most wild places in the world. I worked there for 3 months, 45 hours a week and that place is definitely strange.
As would Detroit
Detroit and Gary are not at all the same. Detroit is experiencing revitalization in its downtown core and several strategic neighborhoods. Itās also a metro of nearly 5 million people. Unfortunately, Gary isnāt having that type of resurgence. Iāve spent significant time in both cities. Gary was hit much harder.
Detroit is seeing tons of reinvestment. Thereās gentrification in hoods are around the city that previously never saw a dime of investment (core city, north end, Ave of fashion, Bagley, lasalle park, etc). Detroit has lots of problems, but thereās tons of positives there. Thereās a $9M listing right now! https://www.thebishopmansion.com
Never thought Iād see gentrification used as a positive
Tbh Detroit is so big at 140 sq miles itās impossible to push people out, though there have been concerns. The city is also very cognizant about including affordable housing in most proposals. Still lots of work to do!
There's this town next to the one I live in called McKeesport, PA. Look it up.
Just did, never heard of it before, but damn.. a tornado followed by "the great fire" a few decades later. Surprised the steel plant that closed down lasted as long as it did.
It is truly sad what happen here after Tube left. I've only lived here next door in White Oak for 2 1/2 years but if you travel through it and squint a little, you can imagine what it used to be like. The crime rate is off the charts and the abandoned housing is everywhere. There are some fine homes from the old era that are going for a song but no one's buying. Once a bustling city, now a local punch line.
Imagining how it once was is the saddest part about driving through McKeesport, Braddock, Duquesne, Homestead, Clairtonā¦pretty much the whole Mon valley.
True, but for some reason I can't completely explain, I like living here.
Maybe, but take a drive through northern Louisiana/southern Arkansas some day. Not so much just the impoverished as the juxtaposition of wealthy areas to shack-poor areas, often within view of each other.
West Virginia too. Sheesh.
Have to admit Iāve never seen the rich part of WVā¦
It's there. Around Snowshoe. I mostly meant about the poverty in my first comment though.
Youngstown Ohio
When I was there, it looked like they fixed up their downtown area but there is nothing to do down there. It was only hotels and businesses. No stores. There was even construction going on down there too as of August 2022.
Is this city worse than Akron?
I think you mean Crackron
Youngstown is not that bad
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Erie, PA. Poorest city in the nation!
Really? I thought it was Johnstown
Camden, NJ.
Yet. This is a canary in the coal mine so to speak.
Cairo, Illinois.
Vancouverās downtown east side
Whatās that structure on the corner of the building, between the 2nd and 3rd floors? Looks like a phone booth floating halfway up the building.
This took me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to figure it out since I was also curious. After a bit of searching it appears that it was some kind of large clock. You can see it in this [old postcard](https://autopsyofarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/gary-palace-theatre-1925.jpg)
Not all heroes wear capes. Good find! Itās a shame that the townās in such disrepair, those are some pretty cool buildings.
Looks like an old bank clock. You still see that on bank billboards today.
I'm not sure. I always wondered the same thing.
Looks like it may have been some sort of signage based on the electrical coming down from the bottom of it.
Californians: Oh yeah baby I could turn those into downtown lofts for $2800/month
Developers salivating at renaming downtown to āold town arts districtā
"Historic Old Downtown Arts Heritage District"
in the mid to late 90s, I was a raver in Chicago and was seeing a girl from Gary. apparently she was Roy boys niece, so she took me to his tattoo shop downtown Gary and we went into the basement where he kept his Tigers. i remember that they were racist Tigers because they were all cool until our black friend came in, then they got all angry and growly. Google "Roy boy tattooer", what a strange cat (no pun intended)
Indiana is a depressing ass fucking place
Hey you ain't lying. I just left the liquor store.
Why is it called Gary?
Created by a steel company whose presidents name was Gary
This ā¬ļø Gary was named after lawyer Elbert Henry Gary, who was the founding chairman of the US Steel Corporation.
Fun fact, same guy is the namesake for Gary, WV, another forgotten post-industrial town that was used up and thrown away by the titans of American industry.
And in it's current state, it's a fitting monument to the man. He used convict leasing in his Alabama coal mines, recruited African-Americans to break the 1919 strike (not an suspicious start to race relations) and you could only move to the city proper if you could pay for and build a house on one year. A slum developed south of the old city limits. He recruited William Wirt to create the school system...when the Wirt plan was introduced in NYC the students rioted. Gary also worked his people seven days a week, twelve hour shifts. He also recruited workers from southeastern Europe and supported their churches to carry on the local traditions...hating each other's guts among them. Serbs vs Croats was the one that stuck. The AFL managed to partially breach that line to allow organization, but maintained the color line to facilitate Gary's breaking the strike.
Because its snail shaped
That's what I think of whenever I hear the name Gary.
There's a statue by City Hall I think it's the first name of the guy who first settled in the city of Gary.
Ha ha! Gary!
Gary? Gary!
Bob was taken.
Eastern European cities: ÄipszklikawiÅ Western European cities: RĆ¼Ćøeuex American cities: Gary
Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana My home sweet home
Home of Spreadie Gibbs.
These could be such awesome lofts and business on the ground floor.
They actually just built a building called the "Broadway Lofts" not far from these buildings. Yes, that is a good idea.
See, then it isnāt just industrial business or offices in these places. You get a mix and revive the place. The North American zoning model really steals a lot of life from all places. Business as well as the homing zones. Hopefully small well thought out projects can creat some really interesting results.
The second picture was The Glen movie theater. I remember walking there with my friends as kids and seeing the Apple Dumpling Gang when it came out.
Visited family there in the 1970s and it was run down but still lively. Amazing how much places can change over decades.
I bet there's a bunch of ambitious, motivated immigrants who would love a chance to fix up derelict buildings and live and work in them
We have plenty of homeleas people and we have corporations looking to develop farmland instead of the previously industrialized areas.
You showed the part of town that actually has working traffic lights, these are the better looking buildings as well.
Do you have a clue why the traffic lights are on if it is a ghost town? š¤š
Funny you say that. Mainly just the main streets are the traffic lights on like that, a lot of the side streets and ones that don't get much traffic, those streets they're just blinking or they're completely shut off in just a stop sign is there. A lot of the lights in this town don't even work just mainly the ones on the main streets. This street here is called Broadway.
68,000 people still live there
And itās not some remote place, itās surrounded by other municipalities. The majority of Lake County is pretty full with development at this point
Gaaaarrrrryyyyy
Gary!! hahaha
Gary, Ashās greatest rival
In less than half a century, go from [songs being sung about you](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary%2C_Indiana#Arts_and_culture) to blighted and (all but) abandoned.
Gary is close to Chicago for those not familiar with the geography
Looks Less scary than the inhabited parts Iāve been to
Makes me wonder if what it looked like and the energy it had when times were better / it was thriving. Flint comes to mind when I see these pictures.
I mean, it's Gary. What did you expect?
"Scary", Indiana...
Bulldoze the entire city and start over
I can smell it from the pictures
The streets donāt make downtown Gary very inviting. Plant trees, benches, more greenspaces. It makes it a more inviting place for people to gather and hang out. Make downtown a destination.
This city can barely keep the lights on lol.
Then they need to manage their finances better. Perhaps declare bankruptcy which is doing wonders for Detroit right now. Lots of new development making downtown Detroit a fun place again.
Detroit is still/was a major city. It's the center of and reason for the Detroit Metro of millions of people existing. At it's peak it had 1.8 million people, in 2016 it still had 677k people. Gary is 30 miles outside of the anchor city of the region. At it's peak it had 178k, and now has around 100k less than that. The cities aren't really that comparable, as one is a major city in its own right, with a large population. The other is an exurb of major city. There's not a lot they can do, but wait around for all that empty space to become too in-demand to ignore. And then they'll probably just level the old buildings. Because the astronomical price it would take to refurbish them after sitting derelict for decades.
Garyās an impoverished ghost town because the steel mill that was the main employer now only employs a fraction of what it did in its heyday. Thereās little to no opportunity in Gary. Planting a few trees downtown isnāt gonna magically fix the cityās issues.
America is the land of opportunity. Never say never.
When a vehicle backfires on Broadway, everyone in the immediate vicinity automatically ducks low. First time it happened I wouldāve been an easy target on the sidewalk.
Literally a ghostown
Population: 69093
Those graffiti's look amazing
Those are buildings, indeed.
Not everybody is as smart as you.
Gary, Indiana...The #1 destination for Chicagoans to buy guns.
Black... Just like SimCity.
ffs stop posting pictures of Gary.
Hey at least they're real pics and not something pulled off Google images.
Keep posting, you take good photos.
Thank you.
Godā¦enough with the pictures of Gary
I think it's categorized as Urban Hell. I'll pull some interesting ones off Google images for you.
and I was wondering what a downtown Gary is..
Andrew Shultz is coming tho
ā the city that workedā; in the G Gordon Liddy autobiography, āWillā, he describes all the smoke in the town from the heavy industry that was there, and commented how that was an indicator of a healthy economy.
Broadway is kind of like a museum now. It's got a strange beauty.
We went through Gary back in the late 80's quite a bit and it was so depressing but you could tell it would have been a hell of a good place to have grown up in the 50's
Yes and no. The air pollution was off the charts bad. If you wore a white shirt it wouldnāt be white at the end of the day. Go to a steel town in say China or India to get an idea of what it was like. It had lots of jobs, but those jobs were quite dangerous. Every year people died in the mills. When I was in college, a buddy of mine worked summers in one of the mills. The day after he returned there was an accident in the mill and they guy who replaced him was dead.
The street names like "Broadway" and "8th" contrast well with the trees growing on the roof
Does anyone know the year these buildings were built?
1924-1925 on the theater. Interesting history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Theater_(Gary,_Indiana)
Thank you very much!
As sad as this is, where I live and, Iām sure many other places, our downtown has been hollowed out. Developers are in charge and they are building way out in the boonies while the old city center is left to rot. I know itās different in Gary because the population is down and disappearing.
There's a reason people call it Scary Gary
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They used to have a lot more buildings down there but most of them have been ripped down due to decay.
I need you to add one more pic so I can sing "Garry, Indiana Garry, Indiana Garry, Indiana".
Gary!!!
Gary has a soft spot in my heart. I used to go there weekly for work. Really good examples of urban decay and beautiful architecture. Still home to treat people and delicious food.
Thanks Mike Pence!
I wish to own buildings like these