The best part of the story: the mayor-elect disagrees with the study because it is based on the facts.
Honest to God, I did not make that up. He said:
“I disagree with the content. I don’t think it is a fair representation, period. It is based on empirical data.”
Talk about “An Inconvenient Truth”!
One spokesperson tried to find a silver lining in the town’s clouds: crime is down.
“We used to be the murder capital of the US, but there is hardly anybody left to kill. We used to be the drug capital of the US, but for that you need money, and there aren’t jobs or things to steal here.”
For the record, I have been in almost every major metropolitan area in America, and I fully agree with the study. Gary is the ugliest and saddest urban area I’ve ever seen in this country. I’ve seen other places that are bad: deserted coal towns, rust belt anachronisms, Florida towns that are nothing but shanties and trailer parks. You may have seen these same things, but whatever you have seen, Gary is probably worse.
I would assume that the mayor of Gary, Indiana has no idea what empirical means. Maybe I did not either at his age.
BTW, the Shuffle Off to Buffalo song dates back at least to 42nd Street or some other big musical of the 1930’s. Newlyweds shuffled off to there because it is on the American side of Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls was the cliche honeymoon destination. Some comedian called it the American bride’s second greatest disappointment.
Hot-lanta – Little Feat? Harumph. Try the Allmans.
And some cool cities can inspire some pretty barfacious songs.
“Please Come to Boston” anyone?
Newark was bound to come up. Little Feat has that Hot-lanta song, but Atlanta doesn’t really suck that much.
At least they have that pretty song from the “Music Man.”
True. How many crappy cities have songs? There are no songs about Newark or Flint or Rockford. Bards usually sing only about important or romantic cities like New Orleans, Dallas, Miami, St Louis, San Francisco, Chicago, New York …
OK, there’s “Shuffle off to Buffalo,” and Buffalo is kinda crappy, but that’s an exception. Even large, comparatively pleasant cites get by-passed. There are no famous popular songs about Seattle or Minneapolis, for example. (Unless you count that Little Green Apples song, which mentions both Minneapolis and the even more nondescript Indianapolis. But that is not a song ABOUT those places; it just happens to mention them.)
Gary is not only the worst town, but among all the 50 worst towns it has the most positive song.
Streets of Bakersfield by Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens ain’t too bad.
Thanks!
I have never heard of that song because I’m so ignorant about country music. I didn’t even know that Bakersfield was important to country until I watched that Ken Burns documentary.
I guess I have to make an exception for country songs. I am assuming that within that genre there are probably songs about many run-down and shabby places! In fact, it almost seems that misery should be a precondition for being the subject of a country song.
Well, there is that song that was the theme to “Here Come the Brides”:
“The bluest skies you’ve ever seen, in Seattle…”