This was dangerous. Gary might be the most rundown place I've ever seen.
In this video, I drove north on I-65 from the Lafayette area to the city of Gary, Indiana, one of the worst places you can live in the country. It was a clear day with highs in the mid 50s, and a recent snowfall had already melted. The day was Saturday, December 20, 2019 and it was about 1 in the afternoon.
As I pulled into Gary, it was immediately clear that this rundown city in northwest Indiana would resemble the slum that I had written about in the past, but had not yet seen firsthand. What was surprising, though, was it wasn’t AS bad as I had thought it would be.
Of course, there were some very bad areas, which we’ll see shortly. But the dangerous riff raff which is notorious among all dangerous regions, was still indoors. It’s become clear that in order to avoid confrontations, I must drive these dangerous neighborhoods in the daytime.
After all, a somewhat to do white man with a camera on top of his Jeep doesn’t necessarily blend in.
And the rows and rows of slums that I had seen pictures of are slowly disappearing, as Gary, like other struggling communities, was slowly being turned back to nature.
We’ll begin by driving through downtown Gary, and visit a housing project, and then maneuver through the worst streets I could find, through online searches, forums and by zig zagging throughout the city for a number of hours on this unusually warm winter afternoon.
Before I headed to the projects and then on to the worst parts of Gary, I drove Main Street in downtown Gary, which was grimy and forlorn.
I wanted to head south on Connecticut Street and head towards Gary’s more infamous areas, the Dorie Miller Housing Project. This will be my first stop, but as you’ll see, I didn’t stay long.
Here’s the Dorie Miller Housing Project. Now, I’ve been to some really bad areas before, and I am rarely intimidated, but the vibe I was getting here made it VERY clear that I stood out and it just wasn’t safe for me to be driving through these projects. So I left quickly. Perhaps if i come back, I’ll venture deeper into Dorie Miller’s bowels.
The next stop was an area that online research indicated would be a really rundown area. A slum if you will. That’s the way I went.
I was not disappointed. Not only was this pretty much the worst part of Gary that I witnessed, but like many other ghettos I’ve toured, there was a lot of open space - where homes which once proudly stood had been leveled. There were many open fields or wooded areas which looked even more hopeless with the early winter brown tint. There wasn’t really much of anything in Gary that was green.
Gary’s population was once nearly 180,000. That was in 1960. Like other rust belt cities in the region, it was a restructuring of the steel industry which hit this city hard. Now, the city is a shell of its former self, with a population of 80,000 people. It’s estimated nearly one-third of all houses in this city located just 20 minutes south of Chicago, are unoccupied or abandoned.
Upon a little more research, I came across the dollar lot program, something I hadn’t heard of before. For a buck you can buy a home like this as long as you fix it up and live there for 5 years and have a decent job. Apparently, the program is limited to certain homes, and there’s a waiting list.
Gary is fighting blight in other ways. Besides just straight up knocking down large swaths of homes, some of the larger buildings downtown we saw earlier will one day be turned into ruin gardens. The plan isn’t to just demolish the entire building, but to remove the most fallen down parts of buildings and leave the rest of the buildings there, encouraging gathering points where people can plant gardens, put in benches and tour Gary’s history.
Gary is challenged for sure. While many lament areas like this as democratic strongholds that won’t encourage growth or incentivize the population to take initiative and fend for themselves, there’s been millions set aside to help this mess.
Alliance Steel plans to open a new $35 million facility. HMD Trucking recently announced plans to build a $6 million trucking depot, set to create 500 jobs.
$5 million more in state funds have been set aside to address blight. A plan to revitalize the waterfront areas is in the works, and Gary’s trainyards and direct connection to Chicago are being restored and rebuilt to encourage more tourism to the area.
But we’re a LONG way from that. Can Gary rebound? Perhaps. But it’s going to take more than millions of dollars in band aids. The people who live here are going to have to decide they want change and do the hard work themselves.
At one point I was way too exposed, off in a far corner of town with no help nearby. I almost became trapped in an alley due to the debris and narrow roadways. It was time to leave Gary before I became stranded or approached.
