Former Fort Wayne resident Amy Wellborn considers this "one of the oddest places" she's ever lived. Her lengthy post mostly is about Fort Wayne's parochialism and resistance to change:
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to blame it all on the Amish. Seriously.
There is a fairly substantial Amish population in Northern Indiana, and I finally concluded that the Germans who settled and shaped Fort Wayne, even if they were not actually Amish, still bore a bit of that suspicious, stubborn, closed-in, parochial sensibility. There's a fear of giving you too much access to the outside world - it might look too pretty, it might attract you, and you might want to escape. Can't have that. So we will decline the direct interstate links, we will not develop the rivers that run right through the middle of town and that, in any other city, are a center of life and development, and we will resent the new.
Some people will resent her for bashing the Summit City, but it would be pretty silly to deny the resistance of the new here. Hell, that defines Fort Wayne. But there is good and bad in that. It can keep a place from growing and stretching to find itself, just like it can a person. But it can also keep us from us from doing some stupid and rash things, or at least delay them a little.
(via Common Sensibilities)
