More at link.
One factor was steel prices — when JFK jawboned the steel companies to prevent a price increase.
Another factor was the longstanding tradition of political corruption, payoffs, one-ghost-one-vote.
The author makes a good point - the folks in MI, for instance, have been standing on their heads in a bucket of stuff for so long, they no longer recognise that it stinks.
We Hoosiers have long said that Gary Indiana is the armpit of America. In fact we view it as part of the cesspool that is Chicago.
After the riots, in the late 60’s, each city that had experienced destruction in certain neighborhoods, took different approaches to the ruins.
In some cities, the neighborhoods were rebuilt, so that today, if you travel through those neighborhoods, you would never know.
In other cities, like Toledo, some of the burned out neighborhoods were bulldozed and turned into green space. If you drive through those neighborhoods today, they just look like parks.
In Gary, the political machine was majority black. Their decision was to leave the burned-out buildings in place, as a testament to “black power”. The power of destruction.
For over thirty years, the other cities moved on from the 60’s riots, but Gary was like a burned-out set from an apocalyptic movie, frozen in time. A few years ago, enough residents of Gary got fed up and elected some people with a different vision. They even elected a white mayor!
Gary has made a few baby steps of progress, but how much change can you expect overnight? The biggest problem, of course, is the mindset of many of the residents. I personally know people who have invested their own money and sweat equity in rehabbing properties in Gary, to improve the neighborhoods and hopefully to earn a living; only to have everything stolen from the property in the middle of the night - plumbing, wiring, furnace, water heater, the windows, and even the siding.
Yeah, blame the steel mills for Gary's problems. That's a good story. While you're at, blame Detroit's problems on the auto industry. It certainly couldn't have anything to do with the residents, and the people they elect to run the place.
Gary is like a Chicago suburb. What ails Gary is Democrats.
Even though no one lives there, and no one works there it’s very reassuring to see that the city updated the streets/sidewalks to make them handicapped accessable.
Union labor.
Excellent article, although the author could use a copyeditor. More than a dozen misprints or errors or misspellings.
She is absolutely right. As it happened, I spent a summer working at Youngstown Sheet & Tube when I was in college, back in the 50s, and I saw it first hand. It was obvious to me even then, as a lad in college, that the steel industry was doomed. And when the great steel strike happened a few years later, it put the seal on that doom.
Eisenhower intervened to send the unions back to work, but it was hopeless.
I know the first part is true owning a real estate business in Chicago.
I hope the second part is true because I am looking at the Dallas area to relocate to in 2 yrs when my son starts college.
Indiana dunes near Gary is one of the most beautiful place I have ever seen.
Great post. Thanks.