Gary's population peaked in 1960. Since then it has experienced a 62% decrease, with no sign of a reversal.
Sources: Wikipedia, U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts
Headline: Governing, 2/17/2026
Jared Brey reports:
It’s no secret that Gary is a poster city for deindustrialization and abandonment. U.S. Steel founded Gary in 1906. When the company grew the city grew; when the company shrank, starting in the mid-20th century, the city shrank. It has never recovered. This is what most people know about Gary, if they know anything about it at all.
The concentration of vacant buildings in and around downtown Gary is profound. City Hall sits at the northern tip of Broadway, just across a highway and a pair of railroad tracks from U.S. Steel. Large public buildings in various states of disuse surround it to the east and west. Directly across a long lawn to its south is a tall building with all of its windows punched out. For five straight miles down Broadway to the city limit, the level of dereliction rises and falls on a gradient from partial to absolute. Some parts of the sprawling city are lively and well-populated, like the Miller Beach area near Indiana Dunes National Park. But the downtown core is a place where nothing much happens anymore. The conventional urbanist wisdom says that eyes on the street make a city feel safe. Downtown Gary has gone so far in the other direction that it almost feels safe in its emptiness.
Related posts:
Continuing declining fortunes of Gary, Indiana. (6/4/2025)Disappearing cities of the United States: Gary, Indiana (2022 census estimate). (7/19/2022)
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