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Opening Arguments

Dying debate

Ever since Newsweek called South Bend a dying city, the debate has been raging there. "We are not!" say civic leaders:

Economist Nelson Mark says population numbers are an unfair barometer of a city's economic success."

"Lets be clear.  The Newsweek article didn't address the economic environment at all.  They simply looked at populations numbers, which are a flawed indicator," Mark said.

Well, OK, "flawed." But if people are leaving in droves, that's a pretty good sign something is amiss. Residents at a recent forum seemed to get that:

But many wonder how it can be described as doing OK when the job market continues to dry up like a sponge washed ashore.

“Why are they getting jobs and we're not,” asked Fred Ferlic, longtime South Bend orthopedic surgeon, referring to other cities around the country whose job markets flourish.

He noted tax abatements and other incentives that the city lacks to attract new businesses to the area.

And here's the verdict from the Census:

The city's population last year shrunk to its lowest level in at least 50 years, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city's population fell from 107,789 in 1999 to 101,168 in 2009. That 6.1-percent drop was the city's second-largest in recent decades, falling well short of the 12.6-percent decrease during the 1970s.

Fort Wayne has always suffered from the image of being a rather nondescript city in the middle of the country -- it's hard to make people elsewhere get excited about it. South Bend is like that, only smaller. That city should at least try to learn from us, and our astounding, stupendous, unbelievable growth of 23.3 percent!

Oh, OK, just kidding:

Comments

tim zank
Fri, 02/11/2011 - 12:51pm

If only South Bend had high speed rail!

/sarc

Bob G.
Mon, 02/14/2011 - 12:54pm

Hey, at least Charlton Heston's character (Taylor) from the original Planet of the Apes movie hailed from Fort Wayne...
(a bit prophetic in concept?)

23.3% growth, you say?
(didn't know THAT many people came HERE to get on welfare)
Learn something new every day, right?

Tim:
Yeah, definitely HSR (like we "need" HERE - to go with those toxic "curly-fry bulbs")...

;)

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