Average place but has good potential
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10/12/2021
I lived in Terre Haute from 1980 to 2005, and have lived in 7 states and one other country since then. Terre Haute's my hometown. I had a mostly happy, normal childhood there, but always wanted to leave. If you're younger and looking for bigger adventures in life, "the Haute" is going to seem pretty sleepy. Go out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Gives you perspective.
But I feel like most of the negative comments about Terre Haute could be made about virtually any town in America. Trust me, I've lived and traveled around the country. There's a lot of "Terre Hautes."
I was a stuck-up kid. I thought Terre Haute had a lot of "trashy people." And if I'm being honest, I mean, yeah, it does have its fair share of trashy people. What city doesn't? I live up in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) now, a place that's totally in love with itself, and I guarantee you there are plenty of trashy people here. After being a social icebox, it's my #1 complaint about the Twin Cities.
Terre Haute is an average city that shouldn't be average, because it has some pretty great things going for it. When people talk about Bloomington as Indiana's college town, they should really be talking about Terre Haute: Terre Haute has more colleges than Bloomington, including one of the top engineering schools in the country, a good Catholic college (originally for women but now admitting men), and Indiana State University. I went to Indiana State for undergrad, then went to IU-Bloomington and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for grad school. Undergrads definitely seemed a lot smarter at UNC, but honestly the faculty were about as good as the professors I had back at ISU. (I also went to undergrad 20 years ago, so I don't know if this has changed.) The question is: why can't Indiana State attract better students? People dumping on Terre Haute is one reason. So is Terre Haute's failure to launch. Endless loop right there. I think what really hurts Indiana State University is the quality of high-school education in America and the lure of Bloomington as the big sexy state school. (Students at Rose-Hulman, though, are pretty bright and come from all over the world.)
Terre Haute produces plenty of intelligent, creative, interesting people, it just doesn't keep enough of them. It's a typical Midwestern city in that respect. Most of the brighter kids I went to high school with moved off to Indianapolis, Chicago, Nashville, or elsewhere. What Terre Haute really needs is for Bloomington, Indianapolis and Chicago to get so expensive you can't afford to live there anymore. Terre Haute has all the amenities of any typical small city in the U.S., it's just too close to more "exciting" places within a 3-4 hour drive. Trust me, I lived in Bloomington for a couple of years. Bloomington also gets kind of boring once you're an adult. I lived in Indianapolis for 2 years. I like Indianapolis, and generally feel like I'm around more like-minded people there versus Terre Haute, but Indy also gets stale after a few years.
When I really compare the difference between Minneapolis-St. Paul (where I live now) and Terre Haute, the big difference is in how the Twin Cities marketed themselves and attracted more talent and jobs. Minneapolis succeeded not just because of the corporate jobs here (which also drove the cost of living up). It succeeded because it convinced people it was "cool" (so, "lots of brewpubs, concerts and coffee shops.") Minneapolis had fantastic marketers 30 years ago who convinced people "this is where it's at." And it mostly worked. Also, the flipside of Minnesotans living in their own cultural bubble is that they mostly stay and invest in their city -- unlike Terre Haute, which really sells itself short.
Some people will mention politics. Terre Haute has always produced plenty of liberals (big Socialist town 100 years ago), the thing is, they just go live in liberal enclaves among each other now because they can't stand people who aren't like them. But plenty of liberals do stay. Almost everybody I know who still lives in Terre Haute is politically liberal, including my parents, who are more liberal than me.
The place does need some more cosmetic facelifts. Some neighborhoods feel run down, others are as nice as any neighborhood I've seen in the Midwest. In the winter, Terre Haute can be jarringly ugly -- like every other city north of Atlanta. I've been in Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh and Seattle in the winter. They all have beauty issues.
When I grew up in Terre Haute, I thought it was the edge of the world. Now I think that's a better description of my current city. Terre Haute isn't much of a cosmpolitan hub, but at least it's within a short drive to some more heavy-hitting cities. 3 hours to Chicago, an hour to Indy, 3 to Louisville and Cincinnati, a little over 4 to Nashville. (Asheville, NC, is 8 hours, a long drive but not bad. It's not impossibly far to drive to the East Coast or out to Colorado.) From Chicago O'Hare, you have some of the chepeast airfare in America and planes that go all over the world, direct flights to Europe, Asia, Latin America. I've driven from Terre Haute to Champaign, Illinois, parked for free, taken Amtrak to Chicago for about $20, avoided having to drive in the city or park at O'Hare, and flown to Italy. As long as you're making a decent income in Terre Haute, you're probably not paying a ton to live there, so you can use that money for travel.
Indiana's state parks are some of the best in the country and were actually the model for most other state park systems. The scenery at Turkey Run, Shades, Pine Hills, McCormick's Creek and Brown County are as good as anything in the region. They don't pack the same punch as the amazing Northern Great Lakes -- I'm a huge of fan of northern Michigan and northern Minnesota -- but Indiana is definitely not all flat cornfields. There's a lot of surprising beauty tucked away. Get off the interstate. Go see it. Would I rather see the Rocky Mountains? Yeah. But Turkey Run is not a disappointment.
People in Terre Haute are the usual mix. I don't think they're any nicer or ruder than folks in other cities. I've encountered both, everywhere. If you want to live around artsy intellectuals, you're not going to find a ton of that, but there are smart, creative people if you know where to look and focus on them. Terre Haute has its own social problems (some due to NAFTA, some to issues that have been around for a thousand years), but what it doesn't have is huge crime problems, gang warfare, camps of homeless people, SJW's who think burning down liquor stores is "justice for George," and the unbelieveable wall of crack addicts and psychos you'll see out in San Francisco, L.A., and Vancouver. You also won't see any Pacific sunsets. But you can probably afford to travel to the West Coast on vacation, enjoy the nice stuff, and not deal with the downsides of living out there (including smoke and wildfires). My dad goes to California three times a year, hates coming back to Terre Haute, but there's a reason why he hasn't moved to California.
Terre Haute isn't for everybody. **Copacabana Beach it is not.** I wrestle with the idea of going back, but I know it's not my dream destination. If I could snap my fingers, I'd live in the Southwest or live abroad. Still, if we're being real, I could write a mile-long list of other cities in America that I think are a lot worse than Terre Haute or at least not any better. Keep a balanced view of the place, have realistic expectations, try not to be too judgmental, focus on the good stuff, keep your mind busy, and it's tolerable.
Stephen | St. Paul, MN