South Bend, Indiana

My Hometown Area

I was born and raised in Niles, Michigan. Niles is a very small community that is directly across the state line from South Bend, Indiana. The City of South Bend is located in northern Indiana, approximately a 100 miles east of Chicago. People know this city for two reasons. First, some people remember the Studebaker cars. These cars were produced here. Second, the University of Notre Dame is located nearby. Unfortunately, South Bend hit hard times, when the Studebaker Car Company went bankrupted in the early 1960s. Although the University is on the edge of South Bend, it actually calls its location Notre Dame, Indiana.

At the turn of the 20th century, South Bend was a wealthy, thriving, prosperous city. Even across the state line in Niles, Michigan, this small town had some large corporations like Simplicity Sewing Patterns and Tyler Refrigeration. Now, many of these corporations are long gone, casualties of free trade and out sourcing. South Bend and the whole area went into economic decline.

Economic Decline

The Studebaker Corporation employed up to 20,000 laborers at its zenith. When the Studebaker Corporation closed down in the 1960s, over 7,000 workers lost their jobs. With South Bend's population approximately 100,000, the impact was disastrous. Even today, many of the factory buildings still stand on the south side of South Bend within a couple of blocks of the downtown area. Further, South Bend had other large companies like AM General, Singer Sewing Machine, and Bendix Corporation. Many of these union jobs that paid high wages are long gone.

An Economic Recovery in the 1990s

Even during the 1980s and 1990s, jobs were around in this area. However, salaries were on the decline. The factories that employed union workers were disappearing rapidly like the buffaloes that roamed the west. Many factory jobs were non-union jobs. These jobs paid lower wages than union wages, but higher than the minimum wage.

Then this area began to recover economically in the 1990s. At that time, I worked for the City of South Bend government in economic development. The city government was active in redeveloping the downtown area. and revitalizing several residential neighborhoods. In some ways, the city government did successfully redevelop the downtown area. Downtown South Bend is clean and modern. However, the good-paying jobs are still disappearing.

South Bend's Future

I left South Bend in December 1999. Revitalization continued during the housing bubble until 2008. Unfortunately, South Bend will not survive the 2008 Financial Crisis. When I worked for the city government, no one asked the right questions. First, some bureaucrats thought the information economy would revitalize the South Bend economy. Wrong! The information economy needs highly educated people. What about the people who cannot attend college? Second, the city government was helping to create jobs. Unfortunately, nobody asked what kind of jobs. The non-union factory jobs were still disappearing during the 1990s and being supplanted with low-paying service industry jobs. You know, bars, restaurants, and stores. In the long run, it does not matter what the city does. Economic growth and prosperity depends on plentiful high-paying jobs. Of course, drugs and alcohol abuse was quite high in this area. I imagine South Bend is an awful place to be during 2010 with the non-existent recovery from the 2007 Great Recession. However, downtown South Bend does look nice.