The Most Miserable City in America
video description
Your discussion about the struggling finances of the city, and especially the line about how cities are designed to grow, remains me of Strong Towns and how a lot of cities have poor finances and high infrastructure maintenance liabilities that are only covered up with more growth, hence the system collapses as soon as growth stops. Plenty of videos about Strong Town's and the Growth Ponzi Scheme, but would love your take on it.
Date: 2021-09-28
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Comments and reviews: 9
Enrique
What a great video Dave! And it s such an interesting topic.
It s always sad when a city or town starts to feel abandoned but I often struggle to understand or empathise with those that choose to stay behind. As someone who has moved a lot, who always been more in favour of denser city living, I struggle to understand why people stay.
I absolutely commend the efforts to keep the city alive, and making it the third Chicago airport sounds like a great plan!
I don t want to disparage the efforts of those wanting to revive the city. It seems to me that stories of cities in decline are always concluded with efforts of those wishing to revive it. Are there (many) cases of where these have failed and the cities cease to exist?
I guess my question is: at what point should people call it quits? It just seems I would a lot earlier than others.
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What a great video Dave! And it s such an interesting topic.
It s always sad when a city or town starts to feel abandoned but I often struggle to understand or empathise with those that choose to stay behind. As someone who has moved a lot, who always been more in favour of denser city living, I struggle to understand why people stay.
I absolutely commend the efforts to keep the city alive, and making it the third Chicago airport sounds like a great plan!
I don t want to disparage the efforts of those wanting to revive the city. It seems to me that stories of cities in decline are always concluded with efforts of those wishing to revive it. Are there (many) cases of where these have failed and the cities cease to exist?
I guess my question is: at what point should people call it quits? It just seems I would a lot earlier than others.
reply
alex
Wow! What a story! Thanks for sharing!
Gary, Indiana sounds like a mushroom city. As fast as the small city appeared on the map as a prosperous place to work/live, it also declined very quickly and fell off the map as a prosperous place to be in.
I honestly think the state of Indiana, U. S federal government, and U. S Steel could've saved Gary from blight. Putting up high tariffs on steel imports, improving public education, building a community college to train a new generation of workers, and maintaining their public transit/infrastructure systems (streetcars) would've been much better than simply letting this once financially productive city rot away.
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Wow! What a story! Thanks for sharing!
Gary, Indiana sounds like a mushroom city. As fast as the small city appeared on the map as a prosperous place to work/live, it also declined very quickly and fell off the map as a prosperous place to be in.
I honestly think the state of Indiana, U. S federal government, and U. S Steel could've saved Gary from blight. Putting up high tariffs on steel imports, improving public education, building a community college to train a new generation of workers, and maintaining their public transit/infrastructure systems (streetcars) would've been much better than simply letting this once financially productive city rot away.
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tbp0701
Interesting video, thank you. I've been long fascinated by Gary, as I used to regularly drive between Cleveland and Chicago. I believe it, and the entire rustbelt, have a major potential upside for future growth, however: the Great Lakes. I once had a Geology 101 professor predict an eventual population boom in the region. As water becomes scarce in places like the desert southwest, he said, the population will shift, and the Great Lakes hold one of the world's largest freshwater supplies. As the effects of climate change become more apparent, I suspect he was correct.
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Interesting video, thank you. I've been long fascinated by Gary, as I used to regularly drive between Cleveland and Chicago. I believe it, and the entire rustbelt, have a major potential upside for future growth, however: the Great Lakes. I once had a Geology 101 professor predict an eventual population boom in the region. As water becomes scarce in places like the desert southwest, he said, the population will shift, and the Great Lakes hold one of the world's largest freshwater supplies. As the effects of climate change become more apparent, I suspect he was correct.
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RogerWilco
We have a city with a somewhat similar history in the Netherlands: Delfzijl, built around and aluminium plant.
When it's fortunes turned, the national government stepped in and basically paid to demolish half the city and relocate the remaining residents into the other half.
A lot of the housing was built very poorly, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, so it was easy to pick places to tear down.
It's now doing much better, being half the size it used to be, but with a much more diverse industry.
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We have a city with a somewhat similar history in the Netherlands: Delfzijl, built around and aluminium plant.
When it's fortunes turned, the national government stepped in and basically paid to demolish half the city and relocate the remaining residents into the other half.
A lot of the housing was built very poorly, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, so it was easy to pick places to tear down.
It's now doing much better, being half the size it used to be, but with a much more diverse industry.
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shotelco
The Great Migration not only affected the Industrial North in ways you accurately described, but it also negatively impacted the South economically as it starved Southern capitalism of labor (Capitalism can not survive without access to cheap labor. About half of the 12 Million Americans of primarily African ancestry in the South left between 1910 and 1965 - 6 Million of the 12 Million. Southern States are still the poorest and under-industrialized to this day because of this.
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The Great Migration not only affected the Industrial North in ways you accurately described, but it also negatively impacted the South economically as it starved Southern capitalism of labor (Capitalism can not survive without access to cheap labor. About half of the 12 Million Americans of primarily African ancestry in the South left between 1910 and 1965 - 6 Million of the 12 Million. Southern States are still the poorest and under-industrialized to this day because of this.
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City
Behind the scenes: In the clips where I'm talking to camera, there was an active lightning storm overhead! I was surrounded by trees and a flagpole. Not the smartest move at all -- but I really wanted to get the shot. Also, my father-in-law came with me on the shoot and gave me all of the details of what it was like in Gary during it's peak (1950s-1960s. I should have recorded his stories as a bonus commentary track or something!
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Behind the scenes: In the clips where I'm talking to camera, there was an active lightning storm overhead! I was surrounded by trees and a flagpole. Not the smartest move at all -- but I really wanted to get the shot. Also, my father-in-law came with me on the shoot and gave me all of the details of what it was like in Gary during it's peak (1950s-1960s. I should have recorded his stories as a bonus commentary track or something!
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andz1995
I feel like with climate change a lot of the rust belt cities will become boom towns again as a lot of sunbelt cities become unlivable/unsustainable or partially underwater, and if the warming continues the weather there will be warmer and more desirable than the high triple digits of the sun belt.
They ve got the infrastructure, or at least the remnants of the old one, which could make it easy to rehouse people.
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I feel like with climate change a lot of the rust belt cities will become boom towns again as a lot of sunbelt cities become unlivable/unsustainable or partially underwater, and if the warming continues the weather there will be warmer and more desirable than the high triple digits of the sun belt.
They ve got the infrastructure, or at least the remnants of the old one, which could make it easy to rehouse people.
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William
Gary, Indiana (The Music Man. Seems like whenever you hear that song, it's being sung VERY loudly, and VERY off-key by a small child! :)
I always thought Gary was such a weird name for a city. Now I know where it comes from. I always thought if there's a Gary, Indiana, then there should be a Roger, Illinois, a Carl, Iowa, and a Duane, Wisconsin.
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Gary, Indiana (The Music Man. Seems like whenever you hear that song, it's being sung VERY loudly, and VERY off-key by a small child! :)
I always thought Gary was such a weird name for a city. Now I know where it comes from. I always thought if there's a Gary, Indiana, then there should be a Roger, Illinois, a Carl, Iowa, and a Duane, Wisconsin.
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MidwestKid
I think Gary is going to rebound hard within the next decade. It's too close to Chicago to be left in it's current state. Also, The South Shore line (commuter train) is expanding to new locations. A combination of climate change, college graduates flocking to major cities will contribute greatly. The good news for Gary, it's only up from here!
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I think Gary is going to rebound hard within the next decade. It's too close to Chicago to be left in it's current state. Also, The South Shore line (commuter train) is expanding to new locations. A combination of climate change, college graduates flocking to major cities will contribute greatly. The good news for Gary, it's only up from here!
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