Jeff
Soc R110
19 November 2011
Tour of Indianapolis Paper To start off, this tour of Indianapolis was very drastic change from my hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. My parents are divorced, so currently I have two homes in Zionsville. My dad lives in a neighborhood called Cedar Bend, and has lived there since 2005. In my neighborhood there are almost no cars parked on the street. Most people park their cars in their garages or in their driveways. The houses here are mainly two stories, with a few one story houses. There are a lot of pools in my neighborhood as well. My mom has lived in a variety of neighborhoods in Zionsville, including Colony Woods, Cedar Bend, and in a part of town called “The Village.” The Village is where she currently lives. In this area of Zionsville the houses are known for their antiquity and quaintness. They are really quite lovely: many of them can be described as homely and relaxing with a pleasant atmosphere. The location of The Village is right near Main Street, which is the central hub of Zionsville where a lot of shops and restaurants reside. Zionsville in general is full of two story, nicely built homes, and occasionally, neighborhoods of large estate homes and even mansions. Compared to the neighborhoods I saw on the tour, my neighborhood (and Zionsville) was generally a lot nicer and better looking. Going around on the tour, I saw a lot of houses that had been foreclosed upon, were run down, and even one where there were holes in the house, something you rarely ever see in Zionsville. Meridian Street to start off was not too bad. The area was nice downtown, with plenty of churches like North United Methodist Church and places like the Indianapolis Public Library. One thing I did notice was that there were a lot of homeless people, either just sitting on the side of the road or walking around. In comparison, there are no homeless people in Zionsville. I heard from a colleague that works at the library downtown that they have trouble keeping the homeless from trying to sleep in the library. It was not that big a difference for me personally, as I have lived in Kansas City, Missouri, where there were homeless people everywhere you went in the city. Driving down Meridian, I saw mental health centers, pregnancy centers, crisis centers, and a foster care, making me believe that the people in this area need a lot of help from the government to meet their day to day necessities. There were a lot of cars parked on the streets, though the cars in this area ranged from nice cars to old run down cars. I would assume that a lot of people in this area do not own or have access to a car, seeing as a lot were waiting around the bus stops. The population in this area was mostly made of up of African-Americans, with a few Caucasians in the mix. The big change on Meridian was getting into the Historic District, where there were a lot of antique, nice looking homes. These were the most similar to Zionsville homes so far. A lot of them were gated homes, had nicely groomed lawns, and two story homes. They did not have cars parked on the street, and the cars parked in the driveway were very nice. The Meridian United Methodist Church was a very nice church that was large, and made of mostly brick, which is very similar to the Zionsville United Methodist Church here in my hometown. Turning onto Kessler was a little bit of a change, as there were at first smaller one and two story homes that turned in more run down, smaller homes with poor sidewalk conditions than previous areas. This change happened when I got closer to College Avenue. Once on College, I noticed a lot of cars that were parked on the street, and the houses here ranged from being very nice to being very run down. Once I got to Broad Ripple, the area became more urbanized, and had a variety of restaurants, clubs, and bars. The houses took a turn for the worst once I got to 38th and College. There were quite a