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.