COMMENT BY
COMMENT ABOUT PLACE
Portage, MI
COMMENT
Bottom feeder city
I've been to just about every big city and with the exception of St. Louis and Baltimore, Indianapolis is at the bottom of my list of America's urban places. It's a very immature city in the sense that it has supporters and if you say something negative about it they're all over you. The only other city I've ever seen that mindset in was Denver...also very immature. You don't see it in really great places. You can criticize Seattle or Portland and people will listen and engage without turning into emotional basket cases. Not in Indy. No way.
The city has a lot of problems and they get glossed over by the marketing people who are trying to present it as a hip, compact, walkable urban destination. They've built the Cultural Trail, for example. They think this makes them Amsterdam, but it's really nothing more than a glorified sidewalk with a nice brick inlay. Lots of those bricks are crumbling and they won't get fixed because maintaining what you build is not the Hoosier way. Speaking of which, potholes and hotpatch. Yeah. You go, Indy!
If you do decide to walk around downtown, take some comfort in the fact that it's relatively easy to legally carry a firearm in Indy. You're going to need one, because there are an awful lot of people illegally carrying firearms and they are not afraid to use them. As long as you're quick on the draw and not afraid to fire back, you should be okay. That said, this city in murder central. You have been warned.
I could go on about the lack of social skills so common among Hoosiers, but that's just piling on. I don't want to be mean. That said, local officials spend a lot of time marketing their city nationally and globally. If they spent half that time maintaining and fixing what's broken instead, Indy could be a pretty nice place. But they don't. It's just not in the Hoosier DNA to take care of things. So if you're from Paris, see the glowing ads and come, it has to be quite a shock. I'll betcha don't come back. I haven't. Life is way too short to spend in a place like Indianapolis.