Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I should have caveated that I was already considering Evanston in this discussion. But after Evanston where else?

Pick any metra station in a traditional suburban town center that isn't a complete post-apocalyptic urban ghost town like downtown Gary is.

[Crawford]

There's some historic apartment building corridor somewhere on the west side of Gary that doesn't look completely horrible. It's pretty clear the west side was better than the central parts, and even today it seems somewhat less bombed-out.

But yeah, unless Chicagoland experiences a Bay Area- or Seattle-style tech boom/housing crisis/NIMBY revolution, this isn't happening.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Pick any metra station in a traditional suburban town center that isn't a complete post-apocalyptic urban ghost town like downtown Gary is.

Why would those suburbs want to be transformed into urban satellites? That just seems unlikely to me.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by craigs

If I had to choose between the two admittedly shitty cities, I would choose Gary. While Flint is in nominally better shape, and I would prefer Michigan's politics to Indiana's, ultimately I'd go with Gary because of its close proximity to all that Chicago has to offer.

I'd also choose Gary, because I'd want a lakefront house on the sand dunes, which Flint can't offer (the ability to go to downtown Chicago on occasion is nice as well, as a secondary characteristic.)

[Wigs]

Gary is the poster child of rust belt collapse. It was almost 180k at its peak, was 69k in 2020 and will probably be closer to 60,000 or 1/3 it's former size by the time the 2030 census comes around. No signs the decline is stopping any time soon.
It sure seems like the State of Indiana has forgotten about it if not left it for dead.

Flint, even with Michael Moore's stark and eye-opening 'Roger and Me' doc and more recent government created water crisis appears to be doing better.

You'd probably have as good of a chance convincing most people that East St. Louis or Camden is doing well as trying to convince people that Gary ain't that bad.
Even Niagara Falls, NY is leveling off from its decades long decline. And that city has the stigma of toxic Love Canal to deal with

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Gary is the poster child of rust belt collapse. It was almost 180k at its peak, was 69k in 2020 and will probably be closer to 60,000 or 1/3 it's former size by the time the 2030 census comes around. No signs the decline is stopping any time soon.
It sure seems like the State of Indiana has forgotten about it if not left it for dead.

Flint, even with Michael Moore's stark and eye-opening 'Roger and Me' doc and more recent government created water crisis appears to be doing better.

You'd have as good of a chance convincing most people that East St. Louis is doing well as trying to convince people that Gary ain't that bad.

You can try to sell me a lakefront house in Flint or in East St. Louis, but it won't work. In Gary, it might.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why would those suburbs want to be transformed into urban satellites? That just seems unlikely to me.

Some of them have been going that route.

Evanston
Oak Park
Arlington heights
Des plaines
Elmhurst
Skokie (around its L stop)

To name some of the more notable ones that have seen recent suburban infill around their metra stations.

It's happening in those places right now.

Not in Gary.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Wigs

You'd probably have as good of a chance convincing most people that East St. Louis or Camden is doing well as trying to convince people that Gary ain't that bad.

Camden is in better shape than Gary, ESL and the others. It isn't in good shape, by a longshot, but there's a semi-intact downtown, a few intact neighborhoods, rapid transit and the like. Camden gets some immigrants and has some amenities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Gary is the poster child of rust belt collapse. It was almost 180k at its peak, was 69k in 2020 and will probably be closer to 60,000 or 1/3 it's former size by the time the 2030 census comes around. No signs the decline is stopping any time soon.
It sure seems like the State of Indiana has forgotten about it if not left it for dead.

Flint, even with Michael Moore's stark and eye-opening 'Roger and Me' doc and more recent government created water crisis appears to be doing better.

You'd probably have as good of a chance convincing most people that East St. Louis or Camden is doing well as trying to convince people that Gary ain't that bad.
Even Niagara Falls, NY is leveling off from its decades long decline. And that city has the stigma of toxic Love Canal to deal with

Flint and Gary are roughly even in population decline.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Camden is in better shape than Gary, ESL and the others. It isn't in good shape, by a longshot, but there's a semi-intact downtown, a few intact neighborhoods, rapid transit and the like. Camden gets some immigrants and has some amenities.

The other three are in the Rust Belt, Camden is on the coast*. Look no further...

* well, not DIRECTLY ON it, recalling a debate from many years ago; you know what I mean.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by lio45

You can try to sell me a lakefront house in Flint or in East St. Louis, but it won't work. In Gary, it might.

According to realtor.com (far from exact)

Median sold price
East St. Louis $25.8K
Gary $70.5K
Flint $71.9K
Camden $105K
Niagara Falls, NY $154.7K

So East St. Louis is still one of the absolute worst cities in America. Flint has only marginally better median home sold prices than Gary.
They're all making Niagara Falls, NY look decent by comparison

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Wigs

According to realtor.com (far from exact)

Median sold price
East St. Louis $25.8K
Gary $70.5K
Flint $71.9K
Camden $105K
Niagara Falls, NY $154.7K

So East St. Louis is still one of the absolute worst cities in America. Flint has only marginally better median home sold prices than Gary.
They're all making Niagara Falls, NY look decent by comparison

Clearly from your data we can conclude that Flint is healthier than the apples-to-apples comparison which is non-lakefront Gary.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Median sold price
East St. Louis $25.8K

A single parking spot sells for like $50k-$100k in Montreal these days, I can't imagine how much in Toronto...

[benp]

Originally Posted by Wigs

According to realtor.com (far from exact)

Median sold price
East St. Louis $25.8K
Gary $70.5K
Flint $71.9K
Camden $105K
Niagara Falls, NY $154.7K

So East St. Louis is still one of the absolute worst cities in America. Flint has only marginally better median home sold prices than Gary.
They're all making Niagara Falls, NY look decent by comparison

Population Change 2010-2020:

Niagara Falls -3.0%
Camden -7.2%
Youngstown -10.3%
Gary -13.9%
Flint -20.7%
East St. Louis -31.6%

Population Change 1990-2020:

Camden -17.9%
Niagara Falls -21.3%
Youngstown -37.3%
Gary -40.8%
Flint -42.3%
East St. Louis -54.9%

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Wigs

So East St. Louis is still one of the absolute worst cities in America.

Yeah, Gary (particularly its downtown area) has certainly been kicked hard in the nuts over the past 50 years, but ESL takes urban decay/abandonment to the next rung down on the ladder.

Gary is obviously in very rough shape, but it at least has the miller beach area within city limits to prop it up a tiny bit (as evidenced by that median home value data), even if it kinda feels like a functionally separate part of the city due to all the expressways, interchanges, and RR ROW's that cut it off from the main bulk of the city to the southwest.

[Wigs]

Gary, with Flint , and Camden has potential to start bouncing back. ESL might shrink to a town of 10,000.

Youngstown might have more of a base and institutional, cultural offerings to work with as the Metro is 430,000

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Youngstown might have more of a base and institutional, cultural offerings to work with as the Metro is 430,000

Using the Urban Area metric (by far my personal favorite), Youngstown and Flint are nearly the same size.

Youngstown UA: 320,901

Flint UA: 298,964

And both of them are about 60 miles out from their respective nearby major cities (Cleveland and Detroit).

The other four being discussed (Gary, ESL, Niagara Falls NY, and Camden) are all directly part of their bigger neighbor's UA, and thus can't really be spoken of in the same terms.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by edale

NW Indiana is kind of its own thing, and Gary is just one city in that area. The idea that no one living in Gary goes to the gym or eats out at a restaurant because there aren't any downtown is absurd. There are desirable communities in NW Indiana like Crown Point so people don't have to go into Chicago to access nice things, though the option to easily go into the city is no doubt a huge bonus for NW Indiana residents. Gary can be thought of more as a bad neighborhood in NW Indiana's sprawling landscape of suburbs and small towns.

This is a really weird thread to read. Lots of wild speculation from many people who know close to nothing about Gary. NWI is one of the fastest growing parts of Chicagoland and has some of the fastest growing towns in Indiana. The NICTD that connects South Bend to Chicago just finished double tracking from Gary to South Bend to allow for more frequent and faster service. They are building a whole new branch extending south from Hammond (one stop before Gary). Gary airport partnered with UPS and has had good success taking on more cargo shipments for the Chicago area. They recently bought out another small airport further South by many of the faster growing suburbs.

They have a plan to develop the area around their South Shore Line stop. https://chicagoyimby.com/2023/08/framewo...evelopment-of-downtown-gary-indiana.html

It's not Chicago's growth that is going to cause people to revitalize and move to Gary, but the growth of NWI itself.

[lio45]

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom..._Gary_IN_46403_M46234-91066?from=srp-map

(^ stuff like that raises Gary's average prices vs ESL and Flint.)


Is Lake Michigan clean enough and warm enough (in summer)? Ever since I got used to FL, I found I can't (enjoyably) swim anymore in the Atlantic in places like Old Orchard, Maine, or anywhere in Quebec or northern New England lakes.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

Is Lake Michigan clean enough and warm enough (in summer)?

I've been swimming in Lake Michigan for nearly 5 decades now.

But "warm enough" is extraordinarily subjective.

Some people seem to have a much higher natural tolerance for cooler water than others.


Warm enough for me, but not for thee.