How Can This Happen?
The destruction of a mass transit system of interlinked street railway cars was effected in the 1950's when the remaining cars were sold to Mexico City. Why did the city need them when nearly everybody could drive cars to their increasingly rural homes?The consequent dispersal of the population of Detroit in the years following World War II triggered a chain of downward spiraling dominoes.
Less people of less means remained. Less taxes collected resulted in less services and a diminished quality of life and security. Neighborhood libraries closed. Fire stations and schools were consolidated, then closed. Small businesses failed and none took their place. Roads and walkways fell into disrepair. More people moved away and a new line of dominoes begin to tumble.
Is there not something to be learned about what happens to a city when you start decentralizing it? Did we not learn anything from the vacant wasteland that was downtown Indy until the late 90's? Governor Daniels recently proposed a plan to ease congestion around the city that most experts said would not in fact really help ease congestion. An outer outer beltway to complement already-8-lanes-wide I-465. Super! Let's not spend any money on creating a regional high-speed line or do anything to improve the city's already damn near worthless bus system.
Most people who work downtown would rather spend money to drive 60 miles a day and the ancillary upkeep on a car driven 300 miles a week? People would not like having the luxury of reading on the way to work or leaving the driving to someone else? (With this city's slow and sloppy driving culture, you'd think at least a few hundred people would opt for rapid transit in the morning and evening.)
I suspect nothing really gets done in this town for three reasons:
1. All the politicians are afraid of raising taxes because whiny blowhards think they're being taxed too much anyway. The 100+ year old sewer system has never been overhauled because it was cheaper to put quick-fixes on it for 100 years, and now it looks like it's going to cost a billion or more dollars to get it where the EPA says we can breathe within a mile around Fall Creek again after a semi-hard rain.
2. Republicans get elected saying that government doesn't work and then prove it. (My hat off to P.J. O'Rourke for that quip.)
3. The cultural norm is for everyone to act like a pack of Bonobos trapped in a closet with a fireworks finale rack when someone suggests change because What if the plan fails? Fear of failure and the unknown derails any kind of passionate discourse that would lead to change here, coupled with a propensity toward a "let's not rock the boat and be nice to everyone because it's the polite thing to do" attitude that leaves everything at a standstill. Much like a deer caught in headlights.
To be fair, change hasn't always been kind to this city: The destruction of the old ornate County Courthouse in the early 70's to make way for the architectural abortion that is the current City-County Building. The kickback scam that was the construction of the Madison Avenue corridor. Although it finally linked the Southside back up with downtown. The influx and concentration of those who vote Democratic. Oooooh, scary.
So tell me where is the advantage in decentralizing Indianapolis? We already have a goodly amount of sprawl, as evidenced by the vinyl box heaven that is Fishers and Noblesville. Indianapolis, for being a city, is already incredibly residential. One has to go no further than 16th Street before they start getting into neighborhoods with honest-to-goodness single family houses with yards.
A few internships I have read lately insist that you have a car because of the sprawl or they advise you to get an apartment within walking distance to the office. Indianapolis is already not like most of the other 15 most populous cities in the United States.
Visitors from Chicago are always amazed they're in a city by the time they get to 71st Street. "You mean this isn't a suburb?" I've been asked.
I don't miss my lonely and isolated younger years in the suburbs devoid of sidewalks, parks with a dearth of people because you couldn't safely ride your bike to the park without parental supervision to cross 6 lane roads, proximity to school friends and any kind of area to hang out other than the mall (which again, you needed a ride to from your mom). I live in a high concentration neighborhood where most people's front yards are about 30' across. And while we have a few bad apples, I like that I am well-acquainted/know all my neighbors. I like the sense of community and barbecue we all share on the Fourth of July when we block off our street and watch the fireworks being let off the Regions' Bank Building. My neighbors are black, white, Asian, Latino, young, old, college-educated and high-school dropouts. How is it we can all get along this well while middle-class white folks in neighborhood association-controlled areas are at each other throats about what color flowers they planted in their front yards? By following reasonable "good fences make good neighbors" personal conduct, we all get along. Rigid rules come into place when you have sociopaths living all over you, and need to micromanage them because they lack any self control to leave you alone.
Are we to conclude the suburbs are full of sociopaths? Possibly some normal people burnt out with dealing with sociopaths at work all day? And the stigma of living in cities after the White Flight of 70s is just so ingrained they can't see the same drugs and crime of the cities follows them up to the sticks, now masked by the faces of their bored and neglected kids with too much time and money on their hands?
Part II to follow....
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