Indianapolis: over 50 years of urban "cheating"?

[Steely Dan]

so, Indy is often lauded as one of the midwest's few urban success stories; a city that beat the odds and didn't fall down into the same old rust belt black hole like so many of its peers did.

and while it's true that metro indy has been one of the better growing major midwest MSAs over ths past 5 decades, how much of that success is built upon the narrative of "success" that uni-gov afforded?

Indy doesn't get bombarded with the same negative messaging that other cities in the region do, thanks in large part to 1970's uni-gov initiative that merged the old city of Indy with most of its surrounding county, ballooning the city's land area from 71 to 362 sq. miles!


BUT when we examine how the 71 sq. miles of the old city of indy have fared, the picture no longer looks all that exceptional.

old city indy 1960 (last census prior to uni-gov): 476,000

old city indy 2020: 319,000

change: -33%



to put that into perspective with the rust belt regulars:





without the magic of uni-gov, indy would've been right there in the middle of that graphic.

now, of course one can argue that indy deserves not to be saddled with the negativity of the "rust belt" because it was smart enough to annex itself out of the story of unrelenting population decline that most other cities in the region experienced, but Indy got to uni-gov itself through a cheat code of sorts.

when uni-gov merged the old city with the county, it merged everything EXCEPT the school systems. that's right, the suburban areas of marion county that became merged with the city of indianpolis got to keep their old independent school districts, sepearate from that of the big, bad, scary city. without that provision, uni-gov would've been the proverbial snowball in hell.

as we all know, schools are one of the major 3rd rails of local politics everywhere in america, and indy avoided confronting that issue head on, while still finding a way to write itself as a "success story".

it's cetainly a "well-played" kinda moment, but it also still feels a little sussy (to use the parlance of my kids) at the same time.


thoughts?

[ssiguy]

It's true that Indianapolis hasn't nearly as much urban decay as most of the other "rust belt" cities. Compared to Milwaukee, Chicago, St.Louis, Gary, Toledo, Detroit, Youngstown, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, Indy hasn't suffered a fraction the amount of population decline, urban decay, and general bad press like these other cities because Indy has one key advantage that none of these other cities do..............it's a capitol city.

Capitol cities always enjoy a large and well paid civil service and benefit from general gov't largess. A capitol city also tends to have gov't as it largest single employer unlike steel or cars or parts etc that are at the whim of the health of their industries and can be lured out of state or country to locales with cheaper labour costs. You can't outsource your own civil service. Being a capitol city, Indy benefits from the constant gov't revenue stream and economic stability that those other cities can only dream of.

[veep]

Being a state capitol helps I'm sure.

[Docere]

Aren't Harrisburg and Trenton in rough shape?

[Crawford]

I don't think state capitals make much of a difference. Plenty of less-than-healthy state capitals.

And Indy isn't healthier than other Midwest city propers. The decline is just masked by the annexation.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It's true that Indianapolis hasn't nearly as much urban decay as most of the other "rust belt" cities. Compared to Milwaukee, Chicago, St.Louis, Gary, Toledo, Detroit, Youngstown, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, Indy hasn't suffered a fraction the amount of population decline, urban decay, and general bad press like these other cities because Indy has one key advantage that none of these other cities do..............it's a capitol city.

Did you not read the first post?

[craigs]

Some of the population decline within the original city limits is due to the usual urban renewal/freeway construction projects of the '60s and '70s. Anecdotally, my great-great-grandfather and his family lived in one of two adjacent houses he built on a long street in a regular neighborhood. My great-grandparents lived in the other house; that's where my grandfather was born and lived for a few years. Anyway, those houses still exist--but the street dead-ends and one of the houses now abuts a freeway. I cannot say how many hundreds or thousands of homes were wiped out to build Indy's ridiculously overdone freeway network, but clearly that's part of the reason fewer people live in the old city now than in 1960.

Originally Posted by Crawford

And Indy isn't healthier than other Midwest city propers. The decline is just masked by the annexation.

Is Indianapolis a propers city?

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

so, Indy is often lauded as one of the midwest's few urban success stories; a city that beat the odds and didn't fall down into the same old rust belt black hole like so many of its peers did.

Is Indianapolis even a Rust Belt City? I don't think of it as a manufacturing town like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit, Youngstown, etc.

If it comes to decline between 1960 and 2020, how many established cities in the Northeast and Midwest did not decline? This is as opposed to growing cities that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s in the South and West, like Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, etc?

Indianapolis does have the distinction of getting professional sports at the same time as coming-of-age cities like Phoenix, Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta, and others. Compare that to Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and others that had professional sports like MLB and/or NFL in the 1920s, 1940s, and into the 1960s.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Is Indianapolis even a Rust Belt City?

Not really.

But the point of this thread is that, had Indy not been able to uni-gov itself back in 1970, and instead was still locked into its pre uni-gov city limits, like most of the other legacy cities of the north, the -33% population decline would have placed it right between Chicago and Baltimore on the chart in the first post, and that would have greatly changed the narrative about the city.

It's hard to tout how "successful" your city is when you put a -33% up on the score board.

Uni-gov very conveniently masked that decline.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Not really.

But the point of this thread is that, had Indy not been able to uni-gov itself back in 1970, and instead was still locked into its pre uni-gov city limits, like most of the other legacy cities of the north, the -33% population decline would have placed it right between Chicago and Baltimore on the chart in the first post, and that would have greatly changed the narrative about the city.

It's hard to tout how "successful" your city is when you put a -33% up on the score board.

Uni-gov very conveniently masked that decline.

I didn't know this to be the case for Indianapolis, so thank you for the background.

That being said, isn't it still relatively progressive? I can't think of many suburbs in this country who would agree to have a joint government with their local urban entity. One could argue while it might have masked declines in Indianapolis proper, it strengthened the region, if not just Marion County.

Isn't this similar to what exists in Minneapolis? It gets regularly lauded for its regional style of government.

[Docere]

The Indianapolis metro area has doubled in population since 1970, so it grew significantly faster than most other Midwest metros.

[Centropolis]

The comparison is often made between Kansas City and Indianapolis - wondering how they compare apples to apples (other than KC has slightly better pre-war bones even though its 500 miles further west).

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

when uni-gov merged the old city with the county, it merged everything EXCEPT the school systems. that's right, the suburban areas of marion county that became merged with the city of indianpolis got to keep their old independent school districts, sepearate from that of the big, bad, scary city. without that provision, uni-gov would've been the proverbial snowball in hell.

By contrast, the Cincinnati Public School District extends randomly outside the city limits of Cincinnati:


This stuff varies quite a bit from state-to-state. I have no idea what the laws are in Indiana.

The two islands inside the Cincinnati city limits are not Beverly Hills-type enclaves. They are all factory working class areas that the City of Cincinnati didn't get around to annexing before the state law changed in the 1920s and Cincinnati became landlocked by surrounding (and interior!) incorporated areas. Obviously, Columbus went on a postwar annexation spree, but that was of unincorporated territory.

[The North One]

It's also a very violent city, but you hardly hear about it unless they have a particularly bloody weekend.

Not sure how Indy has mostly avoided a negative reputation. Maybe the city is just too irrelevant and boring for anybody nationally to care? I kinda forget Indiana even exists most of the time.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I didn't know this to be the case for Indianapolis, so thank you for the background.

That being said, isn't it still relatively progressive? I can't think of many suburbs in this country who would agree to have a joint government with their local urban entity. One could argue while it might have masked declines in Indianapolis proper, it strengthened the region, if not just Marion County.

Isn't this similar to what exists in Minneapolis? It gets regularly lauded for its regional style of government.

Unigov was originally set up in part as a political gerrymander to keep Republicans in power - a merger passed by the Republican state government without local municipalities ever voting for it. The consolidated city-county had a Republican mayor from 1968 through 2000, and then again from 2008 to 2017. Republicans held city council continuously as well until 2003 (the GOP won it back in 2007, though lost it for good in 2011).

This had real political implications for the historic urban core, with city government literally hostile to the interests of the traditionally urban center. Made it much easier to clear out the center for office buildings and stadiums - utilizing the CBD for the interests of suburbanites to an even greater degree than typical for the city. Which is part of the reason I think the decline of the urban core was so marked.

In general, I'm a fan of broader city limits, but I think cases like Indianapolis show it can go too far in destroying any sort of urban autonomy.

[iheartthed]

I don't think Indianapolis is cheating anymore than Toronto is cheating. I think a lot of the "Rust Belt" cities, if not all of them, would benefit from streamlining government redundancies, and that many of them have struggled with growth for precisely that reason. Indianapolis was just successful in solving the problem before it spun out of control.

One of the biggest factor for a city's growth is the land to grow, and Indianapolis has more of it than any other city in the Midwest. The postwar U.S. has preferred/prioritized detached single family housing over all other types, and that type of development pattern eats up so much land that cities with small boundaries could not and cannot ever hope to grow that way.

City by land area (percentage growth 2010 - 2020)

1. Indianapolis: 362 sq. miles (8.2%)
2. Kansas City: 315 sq. miles (10.5%)
3. Chicago: 228 sq. miles (1.9%)
4. Columbus: 220 sq. miles (15.1%)
5. Omaha: 143 sq. miles (18.9%)
6. Detroit: 139 sq. miles (-10.5%)
7. Milwaukee: 96 sq. miles (-3.0%)
8. Cleveland: 78 sq. miles (-6.1%)
9. Cincinnati: 78 sq. miles (-4.2%)
10. St. Louis: 62 sq. miles (-5.5%)
11. Minneapolis: 54 sq. miles (12.4%)

Minneapolis is the only small border city in the Midwest to successfully buck the trend, and it's because they are more proactive about revising their development patterns.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Isn't this similar to what exists in Minneapolis? It gets regularly lauded for its regional style of government.

No, Minneapolis does not have a uni-gov situation. Both it and its neighbor St. Paul are independent municipalities within their two respective counties (Hennepin and Ramsey).

The twin cities does have the Metro Council, which is a regional governmental planning body for the whole metropolitan area, but I think all large metros in the US have some version of that. In Chicagoland we have CMAP, in metro Detroit they have SEMCOG, and so forth.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think Indianapolis is cheating

The "cheating" I was referring to was how the Republicans who hatched uni-gov very intentionally omitted the suburban school districts from consolidation with the city's in the big merger, knowing full well that doing such would absolutely DOA the plan.

That seems awfully "separate but equal" to me.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The "cheating" I was referring to was how Indy very intentionally omitted the suburban school districts from consolidation in the big uni-gov merger, knowing full well that doing such would absolutely DOA the plan.

That seems awfully "separate but equal" to me.

Ah, got it.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The "cheating" I was referring to was how the Republicans who hatched uni-gov very intentionally omitted the suburban school districts from consolidation with the city's in the big merger, knowing full well that doing such would absolutely DOA the plan.

That seems awfully "separate but equal" to me.

We actually have the opposite situation here in Miami-Dade. The school district is unified as one large county wide school district but we have a gazillion tiny fiefdom cities (that do not get to control their own schools).