The Broken Windows Theory is Failing Gary, Indiana

by Garret Ean | Nov 15, 2013 | 1 comment

Fifty years ago, the population of Gary, Indiana reached its peak with nearly 180,000 residents. Infrastructure was being built on estimates that the area may soon be home to nearly a quarter million people. Founded around the turn of the century and designated as the home of the Gary Works steel plant, soon automation replaced human labor and demand for domestically produced steel decreased. As the number of employees of Gary Works declined, so did the economy and tax base of the city, as well as its population, which now hosts less than 80,000 residents. During that time, another legal phenomenon swept the nation, which only contributed to Gary’s woes. The United States experienced the proliferation of the war on drugs. These two factors led to Gary experiencing high crime and poverty rates, which continue to affect the city that resembles a ghost town more each year.

The failure of central planning has also negatively impacted the city. City hall grossly overestimates property values in an attempt to recoup the tax base lost to other towns and cities as residents fled. While houses and businesses sit abandoned and in shambles, back taxes are claimed owed on them despite their negative value. Travelling through the city full of crumbling structures, it would seem the obvious solution would be to allow the impoverished residents to homestead and reclaim the land and property which is underutilized. Yet police in Gary still work to combat squatting in structures deemed to have potential future value, if only someone would purchase and refurbish them. (more…)