A Rebuttal to Joseph Pete’s article.
A Rebuttal to Joseph Pete's article entitled: “Parched in a retail desert, Gary businesses struggle through crime, economic challenges”
Joseph Pete, after reading your article entitled “Parched in a retail desert, Gary businesses struggle through crime, economic challenges” written on April 21, 2019 and updated April 24, 2019, I, as well as countless others were simply appalled by your article. It is almost like you are beating a dead horse. Your choice for the cover picture was deplorable. You seem to exhibit an extreme bias towards Gary. A city that is struggling, true enough, but also has pearls i.e., a Casino, an airport, lakefront property, a steel mill, even a harbor, a baseball team, and a brewery, etc. Source:
Your article exhibits a false timeliness. Who doesn’t know the conditions, and problems of Gary? This is nothing new. Your depiction of a crime ridden city is overstated. Your article appears to put a spin on Gary’s conditions to get notability; yet you never addressed past events that led to Gary’s condition. To add insult to injury, Gary’s decline, state of affairs, abandon houses, blight or whatever else you think is bad about Gary has been written, and rewritten umpteen times before.
It appears that you have given this story undue weight, like it has a much greater significance or potent than a neutral journalist or editor would give.
In my opinion, anyway you can put your foot up Gary’s butt, you will.
On the other hand, what you failed to mention through your bashing is how Gary got this way. While your article alludes to Gary’s population decline and/or plunge, you seem to have skipped
over the the facts as to how Gary’s population declined and/or plunged.
You seemed to have missed that Gary’s population plunged as a result of white flight, and that they left their homes and/or buildings behind to become eyesores, with no accountability whatsoever. Some of those white flighters are even still paying taxes on their blighted eyesores in Gary, tying the City’s hands up because they can’t tear those down.
I agree that abandonment and blight dominate the landscape. There is no argument there, but Why?
Didn’t it start “. . . as a trickle of upper- and middle-class whites leaving? They took advantage of federally backed home mortgages to buy newer, larger houses in the suburbs connected to downtown by a burgeoning highway system. Many black families were denied such federal aid and were explicitly not welcomed in the suburbs by real estate firms and community groups. After Gary came under black political leadership in the late 1960s, this out-migration exploded into full-on white flight, with major stores and businesses also moving outside city limits . . .” Source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-indiana-housing-vacancy-demolition_n_5bce2346e4b0d38b587b231f
One resident remembers: “Sain and her remaining neighbors ― many of them elderly African-Americans like her ― have watched Gary’s “hyper-vacancy” problem spread like a cancer across their once-booming town, consuming entire neighborhoods. Gary’s population has plummeted nearly 60 percent since its peak a half-century ago. Today an estimated 76,000 residents are spread across an area the size of San Francisco.” Source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-indiana-housing-vacancy-demolition_n_5bce2346e4b0d38b587b231f
The above information was in a Huffpost article. The link is noted above for your perusal. Sound familiar. Didn’t your article state the same? Like I said you rewrote the same story, with a twist.
“. . . Property values have plunged so precipitously in some areas that homeowners have simply walked away, leaving the city tangled in a web of unknown property ownership and unpaid debts that now hinders redevelopment.” Ibid
Jobs were lost
Thousands of similar stories played out as U.S. Steel modernized its factory and shed jobs. The company is still the city’s largest taxpayer and a crucial source of employment for locals, but much of its workforce lives outside Gary. Expensive one-off development projects ― a convention center, casinos, a baseball stadium ― have failed to make up for the loss of steady high-wage jobs.”
In addition to white flight, “. . .the steel mill whose workforce has been slashed over the past 40 years, from more than 20,000 to roughly 3,800. As residents have fled to the suburbs or other areas with more opportunity, the city has been left with too much land and not enough jobs.”
Sometimes, it isn’t what you say, it is how you say it
Joseph Pete, your article went on to state that: “City officials report they don’t know exactly how many retail businesses remain open as the population
continues to dwindle” What are the names of these “City officials”? You quote no one in this statement, which leaves me scratching my head as how could a city official NOT know how many businesses remain when they are collecting taxes from these establishments. One of those things that make me go hum mm.
Now these “City officials” can say that Gary is dwindling, which gives you the assumption that the City is dwindling even further, however there are no statistics to support that statement from “City officials” with no names. This is how fake news is started Mr. Pete.
Now I agree, that residents do travel outside of Gary, but Gary does not hold a monopoly on this trend, as this is typical of Black neighborhoods, which are faced with food desserts all over the country. However, you baffled me, as you juxtaposed to a statement of a real estate person from Merrillville, with nothing to do with Gary.
You entitled the paragraph :“It seems nearly having to start over” Then you quoted “David Lasser the president of a real estate firm in Merrillville whom states “I don’t have that solution”. What significance is this to Gary or your story? Or is this just a new spin on an old story. Here is a person, a real estate person at that from Merrillville. You do know that Merrillville annexed itself from Gary as well right?
“. . .Just south of Gary, the town of Merrillville was created by using state legislation to remove what had once been a protective, three-mile buffer zone mandated by Indiana law for all cities the size of Gary. With the buffer zone eliminated, Merrillville expanded right to Gary’s border. White flight from Gary and continued growth and economic development allowed Merrillville to “cater to
commercial interests, entertainment, tourists, and consumers,” leaving adjacent areas “to languish in chronic disinvestment and decay”—Gary became “reserved for the homeless, the poor, minorities, and the urban underclass” (Gotham 2001, 3). . .” Source:
https://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/politics-disinvestment-and-development-gary-indiana
Under your paragraph entitled: ‘It seems nearly like having to start over’ I can see that you are really crapping over Gary. You stated:
“Over the past few years, Walgreens and Fagan Pharmacy closed multiple locations throughout Gary. Ultra Foods left town. Menards has been looking to move outside city limits a few blocks over in Griffith. Few national retail chains remain in the city, save for truck stops near the Borman Expressway and fast-food franchises where workers take orders from beyond bulletproof plexiglass.
Even the Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen and Subway on Broadway in Midtown recently closed.”
Let me clarify your totally misconstrued paragraphs.
First, Ultra Foods went out of business, and Strack and Van Till took its place remember. CVS Pharmacy had purchased Fagen Pharmacy, However, the pharmacy under a new name is STILL on Broadway in Gary. The other Fagen Pharmacy was in located in the Ultra Food Store that closed on Ridge Road in Gary. They found a location close to their old address in Ultra, blocks down that turned out to be Griffith.
Second, Menards wants Gary to rezone land for proposed new store. Popeye’s had a fire and will return. You never gave a review of the closing of
Subway. You misconstrued an entire paragraph and then gave a cocky statement to crap over Gary in stating: “. . . where workers take orders from beyond bulletproof plexiglass.” What an insinuation.
Adding insult to injury, you go on to state “Retail has been declining in Gary as the population plunged from 200,000 at its height to just over 76,000, at least by census estimates, today leaving the Steel City with about 6,800 empty buildings a few years ago by the city’s count.”
Again, you state the obvious, but you did not attribute anything to white flight or why the population plunged. This type of reporting would leave someone who does not know the history of the plunge believing what?
“ . . . Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, who’s been in office since 2012, described the current mess as “disorderly departure.” She said her administration didn’t realize its true scale until it saw how often homeowners cited for code violations turned out to be dead or otherwise departed, with no one taking care of their blighted properties.
The long exodus led property values to plummet. While the median home value nationwide has almost quadrupled in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1960, it has fallen nearly 60 percent in Gary over the same period.
A city parcel survey in 2014 finally tabulated the fallout: 25,000 empty lots and 6,500 vacant buildings, the vast majority of both in residential areas. Taken together, they accounted for about 55 percent of all properties citywide. . .” Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-indiana-housing-vacancy-demolition_n_5bce2346e4b0d38b587b231f
In your article under your title, “It’s like the Wild West” and you quote and state:
“. . . Mark Prusinski, the owner of the 44-year-old Direct from China fireworks store in Black Oak, said it can be tough to be a business owner in Gary. There’s crime, potholes, high taxes, shoplifters and other hassles.
“Sometimes it’s weathering the storm,” he said. “Some days it’s chickens. Some days it’s feathers.”
He said longtime businesses like his 24-hour fireworks store and Bradley’s This Is It, which has endured in Black Oak for 70 years, has deep connections to the city and a “stick-to-itiveness.”
“A lot of businesses left after getting robbed or shoplifted from,” he said. “I stayed no matter what. But in Gary, you can’t depend on the police. You have to rely on your reputation and rapport with the people. The This Is It department store has a security guard to keep away gangbangers so people feel safe shopping there. It’s like the Wild West. You have to protect yourself because you can’t rely on the city to keep you safe.”
There is more to that story
There is more to that story, I took the liberty of looking up Mark Prusinski, who lives in Michigan City. He repeats the same old views, i.e., “gangs and crime”. If the Black community had as many gangs as the media depicts, we would be extinct by now, yet the Black race has more males than any other race. But I digress.
Now here is a man Mark Prusinski that has stayed in an area and in business for 70 years. Nobody will stay in a business for 70 years up against all of that. Come on now.
I took the liberty of looking up Mark Prusinskis’ business, and found this clip from Youtube. (Please see below) Doesn’t look like a lot of crime or gangbangers can even get in there, surrounded by greenery.
Also, look at the comments section of Mark Prusinski’s Youtube video. No one is reporting on crime in the comments section. After his comments, I would not buy anything from him or go near his store. Why is he allowed to get away with the noise? Not to mention he has explosives in a community. Really. So now, 70 years he has been in business in Gary. In the same location and he operates a 24/7 operation. Really. He lives in Michigan City according to Linked In.
Your article goes on to showcase Mark Prusinski as an authority on why younger entrepreneurs are not coming in, etc. I guess he knows them all. Then you have Mark Prusinski give his thoughts throughout the rest of the piece, a clever way to get around statistics. A one man article. So this Prusinski, talks for the City. A white guy who has a store in Gary, and lives in Michigan City, but has had this store for 70 years, yet has a problem with crime and “gangbangers”?
.
In referencing Mark Prusinski who was the major piece of voice of your article you stated that: “He wishes the city would spend more on protecting businesses and luring new ones.”
Well now, Gary has indeed been trying to encourage more residents to start their own businesses through the ArtHouse: A Social Kitchen culinary incubator and its own Gary Micro-Enterprise Initiative (“GMI”).
As a matter of fact, you quoted and mentioned “John Allen” in your article in stating:.
“At 50 square miles, Gary’s the size of San Francisco,” said John Allen, who opened the Foody’s Restaurant on West 25th Avenue last year with the hope of bringing healthier cuisine to a food desert. “But it doesn’t have the population density. As a retail business, your margins depend on population density and traffic.”
What you failed to mention is that John Allen attended and completed the Arthouse Kitchen culinary program, and then went on to open “Foodys”. Was it not John Allen who choose that location?
You also failed to reach out to get the names of others who have went through the SBA programs, GMI or culinary programs to start new businesses. Not just John Allen. As a matter of fact, you never even attended the graduation ceremonies of any of those who have completed the programs. I did not see you at City Halls ceremony for new business after going through and finishing the program.
Again, you also failed to mention or showcase a picture of the Post Tribune, a building like so many other white flight buildings left on 11th and Broadway vacated by none other than the Post Tribune. (Please see pictures below)
If you are going to tell the story, then balance it.
Following are the findings of a Report completed on Gary, Indiana by the University of Chicago.
“A History of Disinvestment
Gary has always been subject to socio-spatial redefinitions. Founded as an industry town in 1906 by the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, United States Steel, the city named after Elbert
Gary, drew many African-American workers from the southern states in the wake of World War I (Wacquant 2001, 101-102). As the number of blacks living in Gary steadily increased, they were confined to the downtown neighborhood of Midtown and prohibited from living elsewhere (Hurley 1995, 33). Racist housing laws and racial prejudice worked to keep down property values in Midtown since it was nearly impossible to get reasonable loans for housing. This practice was federally sanctioned by the Home Owners Loan Corporation program that, through a rating process of residential areas now referred to as redlining, systematically made diverse and older neighborhoods ineligible for housing loans, while incentivizing whites to move to new homogenous suburban developments (Jackson 1985). By the 1960s, declining domestic production and manufacturing led US Steel to downsize and it laid off much of its labor force. In just a few years, the city became predominantly African American. It elected one of the country’s first black mayors, Richard Hatcher, who fought for integration through an open housing bill. But the effects of white flight, redlining by banks, and the further downsizing and outsourcing of industry, continued to isolate Gary’s population.
Politically, Gary’s predominantly African-American population experienced what Wacquant (2001) calls a “double edged sociospatial formation” (103). This formation “operates as an instrument of exclusion from the standpoint of the dominant group; yet it also offers the subordinate group partial protection and a platform for succor and solidarity in the very movement whereby it sequesters it” (Wacquant 2001, 103). Indeed, as black isolation was forced onto Gary, separate, autonomous ideas of
community development came to the fore. The concentration of African Americans in the city allowed for black leaders to be elected democratically and for it to become central in the Black Nationalist movement, which held a national convention in Gary in 1972. However, national inflation and the severe recession of 1973 meant that Gary’s new black leadership would not have access to adequate resources for managing the consequences of such extreme and sustained deindustrialization.
In 1979, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker, brought forward “a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment” (Harvey 2005, 23). Within the national trends away from manufacturing labor (which had previously generated wealth and more stable employment) and towards financialization (the redistribution or trading of wealth and unstable employment), US Steel changed its name to USX—with its chairman announcing “The duty of management is to make money, not steel,” (Harvey 1989, 158)—and Gary found itself with an ever-increasing need for new jobs.
With few jobs and a lack of federal and state investment to respond to the decline, Gary has been unable to meet the needs of its residents. Its socio-spatial definition became what Wacquant calls a hyperghetto: a space that emerges once a labor force is no longer needed and there remains only “the negative economic function of a storage of a surplus population devoid of market utility” (Wacquant 2001, 105). In such a space, vulnerability and insecurity can be easily commodified by offering predatory lending and unstable low-wage work (Harvey 2005).
Since development in Northwest Indiana has been so uneven, a regional approach does seem like an attractive strategy to reverse the history of local disinvestment from Gary to neighboring areas, ultimately allowing Gary to rebuild its economy from the demand side by providing for its residents’ needs. However, in this process it would be imperative for Gary to maintain its autonomy in order to represent the best interests of its residents.
The Regional Development Authority
The Regional Development Authority (RDA) was created to address the issue of disinvestment. It was established in 2005 by the state of Indiana (IC 36-7.5-2) as a:
quasi-governmental development entity entrusted to make public investment decisions within a regional framework for supporting catalytic infrastructure projects and inducing private sector investment. Its mission is to be a catalyst for transforming the economy and quality of life for Northwest Indiana. (RDA, 2012)
It was charged with addressing four regional infrastructure priorities: 1) The expansion of the Gary-Chicago International airport; 2) Redevelopment of the Lake Michigan shoreline; 3) Creation of a Regional Bus Authority; and 4) Extension of the South Shore Commuter Train Service (RDA 2012). The RDA raises funds and then awards grants to local projects aligned with these priorities.
The decision-making board of directors consists of a chairman appointed by the governor of Indiana, a vice-chairman nominated by a city in Porter County and appointed by the governor, and one member each appointed by the mayor of Gary, the mayor of East Chicago, and the mayor of Hammond (all of
which are cities in Lake County). Lake and Porter counties each appoint a member to the board as well, through a joint decision of their executive and fiscal bodies, so that there are seven members serving on the board at a time. Each board member must have significant professional experience in air and rail transportation, regional economic development, or business and finance (IC 36-7.5-2-3c). The state legislation that established the RDA also set goals that 15% of the business enterprises involved in its projects be minority-owned and that 5% be women-owned (IC 36-7.5-2-8b).
The RDA is funded through annual dues ($3.5 million) from Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, Lake County, and Porter County. The state also contributes $10 million from the Major Moves Fund per year until 2015. The funds from Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, and Lake County come from their casinos, while Porter County’s contribution comes from a portion of the County Economic Development Income Tax (CEDIT).
The RDA’s spending in Gary from 2006 and projected spending through 2013 included $50,264,727 for the airport, where initiatives included runway extension and railroad relocation, as well developing comprehensive business, strategic, and land-use plans. Over the entire region, the authority has committed $104,537,364 to shoreline development, including over $28 million to a project beautifying Gary’s lakefront and renovating a pavilion.
The primary strength of the RDA is that it reverses the history of disinvestment in Northwest Indiana by leveraging its local and state funds to draw federal and private investment to the area. For example, the RDA’s economic development fund, created in 2011, spent $4 million to encourage the Canadian National Railway Company to expand a maintenance facility in Gary, potentially leading to the creation of 250 new jobs in the city by 2015 (RDA 2012). The authority also creates jobs by driving its infrastructure projects through local employment, and encourages its grantees to hire employees from minority- and women-owned businesses by providing a database of such businesses and setting goals.
The RDA’s transparency gives the public and community-based organizations grounds from which to criticize its decisions and hold the RDA accountable. In its 2011 annual report, the RDA also measures its projects’ potential impacts on quality of life indicators through a report card. By reporting on their lack of impact in quality of life indicators like education (graded C-) and health (D+) their report documents a serious need for efforts in crucial areas external to the priorities mandated in the creation of the RDA.
The RDA’s emphasis on the shoreline’s parks and regional environmental protection provides Gary with the funds to preserve some of its assets and create a healthier environment for its residents. While encouraging the raising of property values along the lake may help Gary bring in (property) tax revenue to help fund public services, these benefits will most likely be unevenly distributed to the city’s residents (e.g., the public school system is being rapidly broken up into charter schools with unequal access to resources).
Unfortunately, the RDA development model relies on the assumption that local investment leads to local job creation. It denies Gary’s officials the autonomy to set the governing priorities they have been elected to implement. The city’s lakefront and a Gary-Chicago airport could be attractive investments if the city could afford to prepare them as such. But these projects seem destined to merely provide opportunities for those with economic power to profit off of Gary’s poverty and associated low property values, leaving those without economic power excluded and pushed aside. The overall approach, despite the rhetoric of job creation, makes it more likely that these development projects will provide an opportunity for the region’s more affluent to draw profits out of Gary’s public assets than they will provide stable employment for the city’s poor.
While the RDA commits its contractors to hiring a certain, albeit small, percentage of minority- and women-owned businesses in their projects, the Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations has used the RDA’s own statistics to show that “81 percent of man hours presently paid have gone to workers who don’t live in Lake and Porter counties” (Rast 2012). They further raised the point that minority- and women-owned businesses do not necessarily hire minority and women laborers. The Federation, similar to Chicago community-based organizations that pushed Mayor Daley to incorporate more progressive policies (Rast 2001), has recently challenged the RDA to adopt a Regional Community Agreement, stipulating that 30% of man hours on their projects “be paid to people from the most economically distressed zip codes in Lake and Porter County” (Rast 2012). The RDA’s response to this request will be telling in demonstrating its priorities.
Regardless of such changes, the structure of the authority is built on unequal dues and representation. Although Gary and East Chicago each make significant contributions to the RDA’s budget, the smaller, whiter, and wealthier Porter
county is overrepresented on the Board of Directors, which makes the RDA’s investment decisions. The chairman of the board, appointed by the governor, is from neighboring LaPorte County and the vice-chairman of the board, also appointed by the governor, is from Porter County. When the RDA created a regional bus system and the extension of the commuter train service to improve transportation from the region to jobs in Chicago, Gary did not benefit—the bus system bypasses the city and the train has served Gary prior to the RDA’s existence (RDA 2012, 11). At the same time, Gary is now in debt to the RDA, it already owed $6.9 million as of December 2011 (RDA 2012, 16). This might lead to some of the city’s remaining assets ultimately susceptible to acquisition by the RDA.
Conclusion
While regional approaches to development have the potential to help poor cities meet their residents’ needs and improve their quality of life, the RDA denies Gary autonomy, leading to a neglect of the city’s public education system, as well as other essential and social services in favor of projects preferred by the region’s more affluent residents. The national shift from stable manufacturing jobs to the era of financialization and what David Harvey (2005) calls “flexible accumulation”—where company profits come less and less from production—means that attracting capital to the area is unlikely to translate into secure jobs for Gary’s impoverished residents, whose surplus labor and vulnerability continue to be stored in the hyperghetto. Due to this transformation in the city’s political economy, the RDA’s current approach towards investment will not be a sufficient means to bring back the jobs that were lost through five decades of
disinvestment and has the potential to further widen the economic inequality gap in the region as opposed to strengthening the middle class.” Source:
https://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/politics-disinvestment-and-development-gary-indiana
All is not lost
I, as well as countless others have gone through the Small Business Program, and/or GMI, and we all intend on setting up our businesses in Gary.
In addition to that, J’s Breakfast Club, showcases small businesses in Gary.
I must say these programs designed to start Small Businesses are providing Gary residents with astounding programs to help us succeed. The City is even offering small business loans.
After finishing the first level of GMI, there were more classes offered to the students from the Small Business Academy @ IUN. Those classes included:
Part 2 was Process and Plan
Part 3 was People & Professional
Part 4 was Promotion & Presentation, which included marketing strategies, sales, social media marketing and personal selling.
The class will conclude on April 29, 2019 with a Small Business Academy @ IUN, Graduation Marketing Event beginning at 6:00 pm where we will be given vendor booths to present our business with visitors to interact with us.
As a matter of fact, even though the public isn’t invited, you were invited, however, you did not accept the invitation. I wonder why? After all, don’t you cover start ups, as your
job description points out “Joseph S. Pete covers steel mills, unions, ports, oil refineries, auto plants, start-ups, craft breweries, banks, supermarkets, restaurants, and other beats for the Time of Northwest Indiana, where he works as a Business Reporter.”
Joseph Pete, let me leave you with this. Things change. Both for good and bad, and Gary is no exception to that rule. However, here is some food for thought. “Newspapers are Losing Revenue Newspapers have been facing a steady decrease in readership with an accompanying loss of revenue. Some papers have tried to cope by increasing newsstand price and making job cuts. These tactics have only created increased customer dissatisfaction with print, and the coping methods have only seemed to stall an inevitable sinking of the ship, however. In addition, advertisers have turned more and more to the digital world, leaving the newspaper ship behind. It makes more sense to advertise products and services in front of as many eyes as possible, and nowadays that means the internet. With the loss of both readership and advertising revenue, papers struggle against a rising tide that appears impossible to breach.”
Take heed because Reader demographics are changing as well. The NWI Times is making last ditch efforts of posting articles on internet, and when readers want to read the entire article as opposed to a paragraph, then the popups come in and block readers from reading the entire article unless they sign up for a subscription to your newspaper. Tactics that are not working.
In ending
Let me close by saying that I, as well as countless others have completed the Small
Business Program, and we plan on becoming an asset to Gary. With all the bad, you continually point out with Gary, there is still good. There is still hope. As a predominately African American Community, guess what– we still have Gary pride, and even against all odds, we are going to make it.
If they manage to take away these classes, then all of us that went through these classes will share a commitment to teach others what we have learned and know.
Joseph Pete, I bring you Garyside.com
written by: Versie C. McClay Chatman April 28, 2019 ©GarysideLLC2018
