We moved to St. John in early 1989 when it had under 5000 residents, and soon it will pass the 22,000 mark. While Dyer and Schererville have grown, too, the most recent census figures show that Crown Point and Cedar Lake are now growing faster. We moved here when my employer in Elkhart, IN was downsizing, but all of my jobs except for one short-term gig were in Illinois. Likewise, nearly all of our neighbors worked in Illinois. Given how rapidly the east side of town has expanded when Lake County has lost population, I am fairly sure that most of those new residents kept jobs in Illinois and only moved for the tax advantages, while getting a larger home and good schools. We sense that very few professional/managerial/technical jobs that pay the salaries it takes to buy homes here have been created on this side of the state line in over three decades. It also seems the entire justification for the South Shore extension is simply to make it easier to commute to jobs in Chicago. Shouldn't Indiana be devoting resources to encourage more industry to develop jobs here, so the state income tax on more of those salaries remains in Indiana rather than being paid to Illinois?
There's a Chicken-and-egg situation that's been going on with Indiana (and especially Northwest Indiana) over the last few decades. It's my belief the the South Shore expansion and the focus on trying to improve quality of life is our best hope for breaking that cycle.
Indiana has worked hard to become a state by offering things which legislatures believe businesses care the most about (low taxes, weakened unions/right-to-work, weak worker protections and labor laws, etc.). These things do matter to firms, but they're not all that matters. One of the largest obstacles in attracting businesses to Northwest in industries with high paying jobs is lack of a sufficient educated and high skilled work force to meet their needs. Northwest Indiana may be an attractive business environment in many ways, but if the workers firms need aren't here then that's a deal-breaker.
Likewise, it's difficult to attract educated and high skill workers to Northwest Indiana (and those we have tend to want to leave) because the state has gone so far in catering to businesses, neglecting many of the things workers want. This approach has also generally (though there are exceptions) backfired and a lack of high paying jobs makes the Region even less desirable for many workers.
So we're stuck with: firms providing good jobs don't want to locate to somewhere where there isn't an educated, skilled, and happy work force. Workers don't want to locate somewhere where there aren't good jobs and high quality of life. The South Shore Line expansion combined with initiatives to improve quality of life is an attempt to break this cycle by strengthening our workforce. If we can't convince firms who provide good jobs to locate here, maybe we can do more to convince educated and high skill workers to locate here and once we have a critical mass of them firms will begin to look more seriously at the Region. I think this is a good plan, but it has its challenges.
In my opinion, in recent decades two the the main reasons our population hasn't dropped more rapidly is (1) people looking to leave Chicago and (2) cheap housing and property taxes in Indiana. The housing and property taxes are becoming less cheap and many wanting to leave Chicago are reconsidering moving to Indiana in the face of social policy choices by the state (permit-less carry, abortion bans, etc.) which make it a less desirable place to live for many. There is a real threat this will undermine the progress we are making towards strengthening the Region.
We moved to St. John in early 1989 when it had under 5000 residents, and soon it will pass the 22,000 mark. While Dyer and Schererville have grown, too, the most recent census figures show that Crown Point and Cedar Lake are now growing faster. We moved here when my employer in Elkhart, IN was downsizing, but all of my jobs except for one short-term gig were in Illinois. Likewise, nearly all of our neighbors worked in Illinois. Given how rapidly the east side of town has expanded when Lake County has lost population, I am fairly sure that most of those new residents kept jobs in Illinois and only moved for the tax advantages, while getting a larger home and good schools. We sense that very few professional/managerial/technical jobs that pay the salaries it takes to buy homes here have been created on this side of the state line in over three decades. It also seems the entire justification for the South Shore extension is simply to make it easier to commute to jobs in Chicago. Shouldn't Indiana be devoting resources to encourage more industry to develop jobs here, so the state income tax on more of those salaries remains in Indiana rather than being paid to Illinois?
There's a Chicken-and-egg situation that's been going on with Indiana (and especially Northwest Indiana) over the last few decades. It's my belief the the South Shore expansion and the focus on trying to improve quality of life is our best hope for breaking that cycle.
Indiana has worked hard to become a state by offering things which legislatures believe businesses care the most about (low taxes, weakened unions/right-to-work, weak worker protections and labor laws, etc.). These things do matter to firms, but they're not all that matters. One of the largest obstacles in attracting businesses to Northwest in industries with high paying jobs is lack of a sufficient educated and high skilled work force to meet their needs. Northwest Indiana may be an attractive business environment in many ways, but if the workers firms need aren't here then that's a deal-breaker.
Likewise, it's difficult to attract educated and high skill workers to Northwest Indiana (and those we have tend to want to leave) because the state has gone so far in catering to businesses, neglecting many of the things workers want. This approach has also generally (though there are exceptions) backfired and a lack of high paying jobs makes the Region even less desirable for many workers.
So we're stuck with: firms providing good jobs don't want to locate to somewhere where there isn't an educated, skilled, and happy work force. Workers don't want to locate somewhere where there aren't good jobs and high quality of life. The South Shore Line expansion combined with initiatives to improve quality of life is an attempt to break this cycle by strengthening our workforce. If we can't convince firms who provide good jobs to locate here, maybe we can do more to convince educated and high skill workers to locate here and once we have a critical mass of them firms will begin to look more seriously at the Region. I think this is a good plan, but it has its challenges.
In my opinion, in recent decades two the the main reasons our population hasn't dropped more rapidly is (1) people looking to leave Chicago and (2) cheap housing and property taxes in Indiana. The housing and property taxes are becoming less cheap and many wanting to leave Chicago are reconsidering moving to Indiana in the face of social policy choices by the state (permit-less carry, abortion bans, etc.) which make it a less desirable place to live for many. There is a real threat this will undermine the progress we are making towards strengthening the Region.