Good news for a written-off steel city
I’m no Gary, Indiana expert, but I’ve been through the Rust Belt city a few times, and it’s the quintessential model of urban decay. Gary, like many steel cities so tied to the fortunes of the industry, has not been a powerhouse of American employment for quite some time.
Given my memories of Gary, including a scary downtown stop around midnight on a trip to Chicago years ago, this recent City Journal piece caught my attention. It essentially talks up Gary and its future potential while remaining realistic about the city’s challenges.
Before seeing Gary up close, all I knew was that Michael Jackson came from there, it’s a traditional steel city, and former MLB player Lyman Bostock was murdered there. When I saw a lot of the decay first hand, it fascinated me. How does a city fall so far? Later, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole chronicling the rise and fall of the city and all the misery.
Of course, living and working in the Midwest for a time, I’d hear people make fun of Gary. But something attracted me to learning more about the city and its history.
In City Journal, Robert Ordway notes that Gary’s population has stabilized after decades of decline, and that the city is trying to leverage the advantage of its proximity to Chicago.
Ordway moves through a litany of positives for Gary and I was interested in learning more about Mayor Eddie Melton, even watching some of his State of the City address.
I mention his address because there is little doubt that competent urban governance is going to be critical for many American cities going forward. Pragmatic leadership, rather than ideologically charged, pie-in-the-sky promises, will win the day. It seems as if Melton may be leaning more in the pragmatic camp over something akin to what we’re witnessing with New York City’s leadership right now.
Given some of the immense fraud we’re seeing come out of Minneapolis right now, the importance of pragmatic and competent leadership is magnified even more. I don’t know a lot about Melton but there seems to be a sincerity with him and he’s clearly excited about Gary’s potential.
I know Gary has tremendous obstacles to overcome but it would be good to see the city prove that competent, steady governance can still bend a place’s trajectory.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat