Profile of a City — Indianapolis, Indiana
by Clay-Adam Johnson, Pointcast News
Indianapolis is the reigning capital and the largest city in Indiana. Known as ‘Naptown’ by the locals, it is the home of the Pacers (NBA), the Colts (NFL), John Green (famous author), and the greatest bakery in the Midwest, Long’s Bakery (there is no disputing this).
It is located in Marion County, the largest county in the state, with nearly 1,000,000 million people — and which claims 90% of the land as part of the city. The current mayor is Joseph (Joe) Hogsett, a career politician and Democrat, who has served the city as mayor since January 1st, 2016. Along with the mayor, the governor of Indiana, Eric Holcomb, a Republican, answer to the people of this growing city. Governor Holcomb has been governor since January 9th, 2017, when he succeeded former governor and current Vice President, Michael (Mike) Pence.
Population
The city has an estimated population of 876,384, with a racial breakdown as follows:
• 61.4% Caucasian/White, and of that selection in the city’s population, 55.2% are not Hispanic or Latino.
• 28.3% Black/African-American.
• American Indian and Alaskan Native made up 0.3% of the city’s population.
• Asians made up 3.2% of the city’s population.
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders make up 0.1% of the city’s population.
• People who are two or more races make up 3.2% of the city.
• Hispanic or Latino people make up 10.2% of the city’s population.
Population age is as follows:
• People under the age of five years of age make up 7.3% of the city’s population.
• Those who are under the age of eighteen, make up 24.7% of the population (more than a quarter of our residents are children).
• 65 years of age and older make up 11.9% of the city.
• People between the ages of 18-64 make up 56.1% of the population.
Gender breakdown is as follows;
• Female persons make up 51.8% of the population.
• Male persons make up 48.2% of the population.
Quality of Life
The quality of life depends greatly on how you gets around town. A car is necessary in this city, as public transportation is among the worst for cities in the nation. Yes, worse than even Detroit. Traffic is minimal, though, with police officers caring little about speeding in general, as long as it isn’t too risky.
Spots where one can go while driving depend on your age. Obviously, you can’t legally go to clubs, or bars when you are under twenty-one. That being said, Broad Ripple and Massachusetts Avenue or Mass Ave are among the hottest places to go in the city. Castleton is popular among people for shopping, and entertainment, Keystone at the Crossing, the Lafayette Square Mall area, Fountain Square and the Washington Square Mall area. Popular restaurants include Weber’s Grill, Giordano’s, Harry and Izzy’s, Bru Burgers and King Ribs.
Restaurants are great, but sometimes you don’t want to go out to eat. Sometimes you want to just sit down at home and eat in your favorite chair. To do that, you need good delivery services, which the city has, and grocery stores. The quality of the grocery store depends on where you go, with the rule of ‘you get what you pay for’, being dominant in this section.
Walmart obviously, has lower quality goods, while places like Fresh Thyme, Needlers, and Fresh Market will have the high quality goods. Places like Kroger, Meijer and Aldi’s will be more in the middle.
Food deserts are common, with over 200,000 residents affected. This isn’t as much of an issue if you have your own vehicle.
Employment
Now, obviously you need a job to afford food, and a place to cook it. So, one needs to know what jobs are available, and and how much it will cost to live there.
Employment in Indianapolis is odd; or rather it’s odd compared to what our predecessors had. The jobs don’t pay what one might expect. The per capita income is $27,119 which is low compared to other large cities of similar size and/or caliber.
The city is filled with service jobs from low paying to average pay, ($9/hour to $15/hour). This is an ‘at-will’ state. That means that employees have little protection from being fired, because an employer can fire you at will for almost any reason without recourse.
Currently, like most cities COVID-19 has had an impact on employment. At the moment, the current unemployment rate in Indiana is 11.2%.
This is somewhat offset by the relatively cheap cost of living. For example, the average one bedroom apartment, is $929 a month, and the average house is less than $200,000. But you could get an apartment for far less than that. One could literally rent an apartment for $500 a month. It is one of the most affordable, large and growing cities in the country, with Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and Columbus all being more expensive than Indianapolis.
Education
Indianapolis has 11 public school districts (Beech Grove, Decatur, Franklin, Perry, Pike, Indianapolis Public Schools, Lawrence, Warren, Washington, Wayne and Speedway), several universities (including Butler University, Christian Theological Seminary, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis -IUPUI, Marian University, Martin University, University of Indianapolis, Western Governor’s University) and a campus of the state’s community college system (IVY Tech Community College).
The biggest university is IUPUI with over 30,000 students in the total enrollment. The size and the schools make it more liberal than the rest of the state. But ultimately, it leans more conservative than not.
The city currently has over a dozen hospitals in the city, with notable ones such as Eskenazi, St. Vincent and Community North. As of July 20th, the Covid-19 count in Marion County is 706, with nearly 13,000 cases.
Ultimately, Indianapolis, like others, has its pros and its cons, but ultimately, the city is what you make of it; and that could be a good thing.