[DemforBush]

For those not familiar with the place, Gary is a rust-belt city that’s long since sunk into perpetually high crime, poverty, and unemployment. It’s like East St. Louis or a smaller, but just as dangerous, Detroit.

Gary also happens to be the 2nd most liberal city in America (after Detroit, but before even Berkley) in terms of its municipal policies (Bay Area Center Research). The powers that be up there come up with one desperate scheme after another to try to turn things around. None of them ever work. This summit sounds like just the latest incarnation of fail.

[shibumi]

I was born in Gary, lived there 'till I was 18, and reside near the city's border even now.

For people who live in the rest of America, it's a very hard place to comprehend. In my youth, it was idyllic. Now become the stuff of nightmares, but all too real.

(A view from the rear of the old City Methodist Church)