South Bend Is Experiencing Its Biggest Growth Since the 1950s
This is the introduction to an article and podcast series by Joe Molnar titled More People: How South Bend Lost 50,000 People in 50 Years. Joe is a proud 4th generation son of South Bend.
Read the original series: Introduction | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven
Read the census recap: Introduction | One | Two
Subscribe to the podcast: Apple | Spotify | Google | Stitcher | TuneIn
South Bend has MORE PEOPLE!
Yes, I have been waiting to say that for over a year now. Yes, it feels good. Last year, West.SB published my series More People that documented the decline in population in South Bend. With the results of the 2020 Census—delayed for months due to COVID—finally released, we can say with confidence: South Bend grew in the last decade.
The results are far better than I or anyone I knew was expecting, and they speak to something happening in the city right now. We will publish a much larger More People article detailing what we learned from the 2020 Census, but for now, here are some headlines:
South Bend grew! Our population now is officially 103,453 compared to 101,168 in 2010.
Not only did South Bend grow, but it did so at a faster rate than at any time since the 1950s.
This is only the second Census since Studebaker closed to show any growth at all.
South Bend grew faster than overall St. Joseph County. This is a truly remarkable piece of information learned from the Census and is the first time in over a century this has happened.
If you read More People, you read about how South Bend’s decline was less about losing Studebaker and our manufacturing giants but more about people moving outside of the city limits for the suburbs. This is the first time since the 1910s where the city grew faster than the suburbs—a truly remarkable event. South Bend grew by 2.3% while St. Joseph County grew by 2.2%. If you only look at the areas outside of South Bend and Mishawaka, the unincorporated area only grew by 0.8%. Granger, the premier suburb of our area, shrank for the first time in its history.
What does all this mean?
It doesn’t mean that South Bend’s problems are solved. It doesn’t mean that we have reversed all of our population decline or the negative impacts—far from it—but it does mean that South Bend is not dying. South Bend is not managing its decline. This city has seen the worse that suburbanization and deindustrialization can throw at a place. The people who call South Bend home know what it's like to be forgotten, left to whither. Thousands upon thousands of people work every day to make our city on the river a better place to live. This new data speaks to our perseverance. South Bend has more people. It is a sign that our efforts are not in vain.