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On Broad Street, a steady stream of people are swinging into a coffee shop serving lattes and elaborate scones. They can sip their drinks while hitting up the record store and eyeing instruments at a shop where Wilco buys gear. Or they can walk up the street for a haircut from a celebrity stylist, turn onto Main Street to grab a beer at one of the three craft breweries in town, then tuck into a chickenless chicken salad sandwich at the local vegan-friendly cafe.

Only a taxidermy parlor with a moose on its roof makes it plain that this isn’t Wicker Park but a small northwest Indiana town, population 16,500, just south of Gary, 35 miles from the Loop.

Griffith, with its suddenly cool six-block downtown, has a story that starts with the familiar Rust Belt tropes—a rail town hit hard by the rise of trucking in the ’70s, then hit again as area steel mills declined. Without jobs to keep young families in town, Griffith shuttered one of its four elementary schools—the one anchoring its downtown—in 2011. But then the story changed.

A $2 million shot in the arm and a $600,000 facade program triggered a reinvention straight out of a city planner’s dreams. Today, Griffith’s downtown is filled with young entrepreneurs building the kind of independent businesses that attract 20- and 30-somethings. In 2007, the vacancy rate downtown stood at 60 percent. Now it hovers around 7 percent.

Good on both Griffith and Indiana.

We don’t have to exactly copy this example, and it obviously can’t work everywhere because there are only so many hipsters to go around and only so many forgotten places that close to the Loop.

But we need more innovative thinking like this in Illinois. Everywhere in Illinois, including in the governor’s office. Enough with the anti-union stuff. Move the state forward.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:38 am

Comments

Preach brother! AMEN! Tell Pharaoh to let our people go!

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:41 am
==there are only so many hipsters to go around==

Ya know, a tax break for hipster cloning labs wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Comment by Fusion Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:44 am
Kudos to Rich for highlighting some innovative programs the past few days. It can’t hurt to bring attention to those.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:48 am
Yeah, who needs all these tough political choices to bring good factory jobs back to IL when we could just spend a bunch of money trying to lure college-educated hipsters to work sales jobs?

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:50 am
It’s about livability. Selected public investments in infrastructure, especially making communities walkable and bikeable, along with preserving historic resources to maintain a sense of place can help communities attract entrepreneurs.

Of course State government has to have people who get it and be willing to create programs and funding to make it happen. Sadly Illinois is short on both.

Comment by Sir Reel Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:51 am
Enough with the anti-union stuff.

Enough with his drive to destroy citizens barely surviving in our economy. Enough of his partisan bridge burning. Enough with the endless campaigning. Enough with the vilifying. Enough with the Amateur Hour Staffers.

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:51 am
Yeah, who needs all these tough political choices to bring good factory jobs back to IL when we could just spend a bunch of money trying to lure college-educated hipsters to work sales jobs?

Troll.

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:52 am
I wonder where the Griffith hipsters work?

Comment by Bill White Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:54 am
You had me at elaborate scones…

Comment by Politix Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:55 am
Thank God Rauner is a terrible strategist. If he had focused on the doable, and had his best and brightest focused on programs as innovative as this one, he could’ve crushed public and private unions in his 4th year by leveraging his success in the first 3.

Comment by AC Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:55 am
Apparently this governor is using his dislike of unions as a scapegoat for not going forward and leading and governing Enough is enough This governor needs to start working in a constructive way with ALL of our elected officials The Republican leadership and fellow Republican legislators and senators need to show some backbone and tell this governor that they too were elected to govern and stop playing political games with the lives of Illinois citizens

Comment by JB Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:57 am
“Thank God Rauner is a terrible strategist. If he had focused on the doable, and had his best and brightest focused on programs as innovative as this one, he could’ve crushed public and private unions in his 4th year by leveraging his success in the first 3.”

Kind of tough to do that when you’re negotiating a four-year contract during your first year of office. Settle down.

Comment by Politix Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 9:59 am
Unfortunately, moving the state forward would lessen the motivation to pass his agenda. What a waste.

Comment by Earnest Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 10:03 am
Springfield should hire Griffith’s city manager. With all the failing business in downtown, you wonder when it’s finally rock bottom.

Comment by Almost the Weekend Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 10:04 am
We have friends that live in Griffith and they love the town and everything they have done…..but they both work in Illinois.

So there’s that.

Comment by Dee Lay Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 10:20 am
I’m all for moving things forward, provided we are not forcing or leaving anyone behind in the process.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 10:53 am
Using Indiana, that bastion of backwater, purveyor of low wages and lower workers comp, boot-licker to the mighty state to its immediate west and Hoosier to all; seems a tad strange.

Comment by Nick Danger Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 11:08 am
It hardly matters where you work since so many people mainly work from home. I know multiple people who live several states away from the business that employs them. Or, they travel so much that it doesn’t matter where they live as long as they are near an airport
It’s a new world!
IL needs to get creative and stop relying on the past to do job creation.

Comment by Belle Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 12:41 pm
===We have friends that live in Griffith and they love the town and everything they have done…..but they both work in Illinois.===

This is an important issue. Over 51,000 Hoosiers from northwest Indiana work in Illinois. Although it may be cheaper to live in Indiana, the salaries are low and there are very limited choices in terms of the types of employment which is available. Additionally, the schools are mediocre at best. And, they have gotten worse since the reign of Mitch Daniels when funding for K-12 education was slashed.

Comment by Former Hoosier Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 1:37 pm
===Over 51,000 Hoosiers from northwest Indiana work in Illinois===

Interesting stat. Where’d you get it?

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 1:40 pm
Very nice. It is also happening in many Illinois towns, Ottawa and Lasalle have seen a lot of investment in there main streets the last 5 years. I have also seen improvements in many other communities.

Comment by Augie Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 1:47 pm
Rich- I got the stats from “incontext” which is published by IU’s Kelly School of Business. The 51,000 only includes Lake and Porter Counties. There are lots of residents from LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties who work in Chicago (and take the South Shore train) but I couldn’t find the stats on those 2 counties.

Comment by Former Hoosier Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 3:12 pm
Yes. Good suggestion.

Comment by walker Friday, Jan 15, 16 @ 3:54 pm