September 15, 2003

One circle, and a lot of holes

INDIANAPOLIS - "Indy," a.k.a. "The Circle City," looks OK for a flat midwestern town. But, if it's the 11th largest city in the U.S., we're in trouble. The per capita asshole population here seems to be greater than most other places I've visited on my tour.

The downtown area is small but looked semi-attractive. There seemed to be many joggers present, and the population appears to be more oriented towards outdoors recreation than elsewhere in the Midwest. That's perhaps explained by this being where the graduates of one of Indiana's "universities" go. In addition to young urban bumpkins and the indigenous population, it also seems to be a favorite getaway for yokels from neighboring states.

My impressions of Indy weren't helped by me getting kicked out of three different places. I was escorted out of the Centre mall because, even though I wasn't riding it, I had my bike with me. I wandered into one of their "museums" through an open, main entrance that had no sign about the museum being closed, yet I was asked to leave because it's closed on Monday. I later walked through an open door at the Indy zoo, and it turned out I wasn't welcome there either.

On the plus side, the city has several canals with bikeways that criss-cross the city, and it would appear to be fairly bike-friendly. While the canals aren't as wide and deep as the wonderful L.A. River, they also don't appear to be clogged with garbage and covered with graffitt.

But, overall, I'd rate this place as a dump, and my only regret is that doing a proper hit piece on it would require spending both time and money here.

Posted to BloggingAcrossAmerica at September 15, 2003 03:52 PM

Comments

You are encountering some turbulence in the flyover states it appears. When you get to Ohio, I predict things will be a little better--I just hope they can keep the grid live.

Posted by: joseph at September 16, 2003 02:38 PM