I Drove Through Downtown Indianapolis. Where Was Everyone??

Is Indianapolis ever going to recover??

Indianapolis, Indiana! Everyone knows it’s the capital of Indiana and home to a lot of sports teams. It has a reputation of being a big city with a small town vibe. But what is it all about? Is it fun? Is it safe? As we’ll see, the answers to those questions are clearly NO.

But Indianapolis is one of the biggest cities in the midwest and worth talking about. So when I was passing by, I had to pull off of I-65 and spend a day here.

The day I was passing by Indianapolis was a very nice one. The sun was very bright and it was unusually warm for the city - around 70 degrees in late November of 2021. It was the perfect day to grab a pork tenderloin sandwich and do a short tour of Indianapolis, Indiana!

Aww Indianapolis.

We’re downtown right now. We’re going to drive around downtown Indianapolis and see what it’s all about. Along the way, we’ll talk about the good and the bad, what it’s like living here, and chat with someone who grew up here to get her perspective on what Indy’s all about.

Sadly, I tried to focus on the positive things about living here, but it was hard for both of us to stay positive. There’s just too many things to complain about nowadays.

Downtown Indy is..sorta okay. It’s pretty slow paced. There’s certainly no hustle and bustle. You can park easily and it’s pretty cheap. It’s not gonna WOW you with things to do, but you could find enough to keep you busy if you lived here. There’s not a lot of culture here - it’s mostly bars and restaurants with basic midwest food - steaks, burgers, chicken, taters. There are many nationally known museums downtown, there’s a zoo, and there’s some cool areas where you can shop. We’ll see some of that along the way.

Indy has added a lot of condos downtown, and there are a lot of hotels which support the nearby sports venues. Within - or close to downtown is the NBA arena where the Pacers play, some college basketball arenas, and of course, the stadium where the Colts play. Peyton Manning came to town and threw a lot of touchdown. So, In 2008, they built him Lucas Oil Stadium, and what followed was even more development, and a Super Bowl, and worldwide attention. So you could say Peyton Manning really helped make Indianapolis a better place with just one arm.

There’s parts of downtown that are very nice. And the city is always looking to make it even better. But goals and realizations don’t always match up. Today, there are frustrations from locals who say downtown is getting more dangerous and rundown. Stores are closing and there’s a lot more gang activity, and litter and homelessness here. The day I drove through must have been the day after a major sweep, because I didn’t see much of that at all. But it’s usually worse looking. Maybe they heard I was coming.

While downtown isn’t too bad, most of Indianapolis is pretty rundown and beat up. The south side is industrial and there’s a lot of older homes and crime. The west side is a lot of strip malls and some hoods, a big racetrack and an airport. The east side has now become little Chicago. Yeah, it’s bad over there. So bad that Indianapolis is now top ten in the nation for crime, and even more dangerous than Chicago per capita. Yes, I said that.

If you HAD to move to Indianapolis, you’d want to live on the north end. Anywhere due north of downtown is much nicer. The Broad Ripple neighborhood is very nice, and as you get out of the downtown sprawl, most of the nicest parts of the area are in this general area here. Zionsville, Fishers, Noblesville and Carmel are all super nice places to live. Probably the best places to live in the whole state.

One good thing about Indy is the cost of living. You can still get a home here for about $200,000 as of this writing. That’s dirt cheap. Although, again, just about anywhere you live in Indy proper is either rundown or crime ridden.

So what happened to Indianapolis? How did it get so bad here? We’ll talk to someone who lives here soon, but it’s actually pretty shocking how fast this place has gone down the tubes. The homicide rate here has gone up just about every year over the last decade. In some cities, you can put up with the crime because of the nearby amenities. If you live here, that’s one thing, this is your home, and there’s good people in town. But unless you want to live a sheltered posh lifestyle just outside of the city limits, I can’t see any reason to recommend you move here.

#indiana #moving

Email me: [email protected]

I have a Patreon if you love it so much! Here's the link to donate to the channel: https://www.patreon.com/NickJohnsonYo...

You can buy my music here:

iTunes:   / state-songs-an-album  

More places to get my music:
-Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/a...

This channel is about America!

The best video on this topic!