More People: How South Bend Lost 50,000 People in 50 Years
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
Take a drive or walk through many South Bend neighborhoods – especially those of the grand late 19th century mansions or the tightly packed narrow 1910s and 1920s houses built close to a long-abandoned streetcar line – and an immediate fact will occur to you: South Bend used to be the home of many more people.
Blocks where houses once stood – their old connection from the sidewalk to the street remaining as an undeniable reminder – are now occupied with sole survivors. Many times, these remaining homes sit proudly amongst the small fields they now dominate. Neatly trimmed, fenced-in yards with porches are occupied by new Adirondack chairs and a well-used grill.
Many of the boarded up and fire damaged homes are gone, but a few remain. These neighborhoods are no longer scared by their presence, but are still impacted by the loss. The people and economy these houses were built for is also long gone. According to the U.S. Census, South Bend’s population boomed from 1900 through 1930, tripling in that time frame and gaining 70,000 souls. Neighborhoods such as the Near Northwest Neighborhood and the South East Neighborhood, among many more, fueled the growth of a bustling city.
Unfortunately, it is in these neighborhoods we can see the most dramatic effects of the collapse in population in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Though the evidence is far harder to notice, several other neighborhoods throughout the city also dropped twenty, thirty, and sometimes forty percent in populations than what they had in the 1960s. Their lawns are kept up and the lights come on at night, but where once a house served families of four, five, or six people at a time now serve one, two, or three. It is from these neighborhoods, same as the ones dotted with vacant lots, that the collapse of South Bend’s population came.
According to census records, in 1960 South Bend was the 92nd largest city in the country, with a growing population that suggested it would remain one of the country’s solid second tier cities. Yet today, South Bend sits as the 305th largest city. However, many similarly sized places are not principal cities like South Bend, but are the incorporated suburbs of much larger cities. For example, Carmel Indiana sits at 311th largest.
Why does this matter? It’s not a terrible question. While South Bend has declined by about 31,000 people in 60 years, St. Joseph County has gained over 30,000 people in that time frame. The metropolitan area that South Bend occupies – and is the largest and primary city of – has grown by over 30,000 people as well in the previous decades. City boundaries are simply imagined lines on a map. This thinking is enticing. Yes, South Bend has lost population, but the region has grown and many will say that’s a better indicator of the day to day life we inhabit. They will say we are all “Michiana” and occupy the same job and housing markets.
The problem is that the city’s imagined boundary lines have tangible stakes to the people who live within them and deal with the concrete real-world implications they impose. Taxes within those imagined lines are paid to school districts and city governments that rely on those tax dollars to fund teachers, road construction, garbage collection, clean water, police and fire protection, and all the other services that we expect from living in a city.
When the people in those imagined lines move and no one is there to replace them, the consequences are often dramatically negative. Ten houses on a block where twenty existed equates to roughly 50% reduction in taxes, children attending schools, local business support, etc. Those reductions have ramifications that spiral outwards and do damage to the neighborhood and the city as a whole.
Furthermore, as illustrated above, the City of South Bend has lost approximately 31,000 people since 1960. That number - drastic as it is - hides the real decline South Bend has suffered. If we look at only the areas of South Bend which were in the city at its 1960 height, those areas today have a population of 86,000, resulting in nearly 50,000 less people. South Bend has nearly doubled in geographic size since 1960 through annexations, which has helped to hide the unbelievable collapse she endured.
This series will explore the process of how South Bend, which had grown for nearly its entire 120-year existence up to 1960, began a half century of decline. Each article will attempt to explore a part of this larger story and, with luck, provide information on how to move forward.
By telling this story, I intend to properly put it into context how we think about South Bend’s past. Many of the common assumptions about what happened to South Bend in the second half of the 20th century ring true. Studebaker and other manufacturers floundered and fled the city, leading to a drastic decline. This isn’t false, but it only tells a glimpse of the story by missing a lot of factors in the process.
The first article in this series will discuss how South Bend suffered such a dramatic loss. In order to properly diagnose what happened from 1960 through 2010, we first have to understand the basic nature of how our neighborhoods lost population. Once we understand how and where this collapse came from, we can better recognize why it happened.