Indiana fastest growing suburb-Fisher, Indiana

Fort Wayne, Indiana officials are excited at Fort Wayne's population increase as reported in the Journal-Gazette. The U.S. Census Bureau conducted an estimation of cities populations in 2006 placing Fort Wayne as the 70th largest city in the nation.

The state's three largest cities in population - Indianapolis (785,597), Fort Wayne (249,637) and Evansville (115,738) - each gained residents over the past year, but the latter two both lag behind their 2000 estimates. Indianapolis' gains- have been marginal, gaining just 3,760 residents in an up-and-down pattern of growth and decline over the six years.

During the 1950 Fort Wayne, Indiana began to lose it's population. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka required communities to integration its schools. Fort Wayne began to see an exodus of raced white (rw) flight to the suburb during the 1960's while at the same time African-American (aa) population saw a steady increase in its urban core. By the 1970, Fort Wayne began to artificially grow its population through annexation. In 1970, Fort Wayne annexed an incorporated area containing 14,000 raced whites into the city, but the overall raced white population increased only by 8, 206.

Source: dowdellresearch, llc

By 1980, the raced white population in Fort Wayne saw a loss of over 14,000 raced whites. By 2000, Fort Wayne knew it was in serious problem in competing with the suburbs when it saw the raced white population grow only by 4, 100 as its African -Americans and Latino population increased. source: dowdellresearch,llc

So where did they go? It would be to the suburbs.

According to Associated Press, as reported in the West Lafayette Journal and Courier, the big news is the growth of the suburbs. The suburbs have learn the lesson from the bit cities that were facing a decline in population by annexing unincorporated areas.

Annexation helped Fort Wayne stop five years of declining population. Indiana's second largest city (and the 70th largest in the nation) swallowed a large portion of suburban Aboite Township on Jan. 1, 2006, bringing about 25,000 new residents into the city. Not all of them showed up on the latest estimates.

Fishers in one of the fastest growing suburbs in Indiana.

The population of Fishers, once a sleepy little community along Interstate 69 between Indianapolis and Anderson, has grown by 59 percent over the past six years to 61,840, the Census Bureau said.

So what can we in Fort Wayne learn from Fishers? That the fight over dollars to rehab schools go beyond yellow and blue and really about black and white.