Regarding sidewalks, the foot traffic on the streets in Michigan City is even sparser than vehicle traffic. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the most common method of commuter transportation was driving alone at 82.1%, with carpooling, public transit, and walking clocking in at 9.5%, 1.98%, 3.05% respectively. Some roads still don’t have sidewalks to walk on, forcing pedestrians to walk right next to fast-moving vehicles.

If Michigan City was built more compactly — or if government officials there focused on “thickening up” the city rather than extending outward — more people would be able to walk or bike. This is the case in much larger cities. Consider Tokyo, Japan. Kids as young as three and four can be spotted going to and from bakeries and grocery stores for their parents. (Some of these are secretly filmed, with the permission of parents, and aired as the popular Japanese TV show My First Errand.)

Weather alone isn’t reason enough to disqualify bike commuting. In Copenhagen, a city with a population of 777,000, the number of people that use bikes to get to work sits at an astonishing 35%, compared to the U.S. national average of 0.6%. When it comes to snowfall, Copenhagen receives even more snow annually than Michigan City (55 inches versus 47 inches). The same is true of rainy days. Copenhagen receives an average of 170 days of rain per year, while Michigan City receives just 138.

UIO Indicator #3: Excess Real Estate and Excess Parking

Quite apart from the thousands of new homes the city hopes will be built in newly annexed neighborhoods, Michigan City’s existing real estate also points to urban infrastructural obesity.

According to NeighborhoodScout.com, the estimated vacancy rate of residential homes in Michigan City is 14.4%. Nearly two-thirds of homes are single-family homes (this doesn’t include apartments and mobile homes). More than 55% of homes across all types have at least three bedrooms. And yet, according to the Census Bureau, 34% of Michigan City residents live alone. These numbers — not to mention the 24% of undeveloped land within the current city limits (see Figure 4 above) — all suggest that there is plenty of existing housing opportunities that can be filled in before growing outward.

We see a similar pattern with commercial real estate. While I don’t have data on Michigan City specifically, I do have some on the region. Office vacancy across Northwest Indiana rose to 19% last year, up from 14% in 2017. According to Merrillville-based Commercial In-Sites’ annual Northwest Indiana Office Market Survey, only about 35% of the Region’s multi-tenant office buildings are now fully occupied. If Michigan City’s vacancy rate is roughly equivalent to the broader region’s, then there are a lot of acres of commercial land available in the current city limits; the proposed annexations will add very little to the available supply (again, see Figure 4 above) and will diffuse commercial activity across an even greater area.

And then there is the parking.

Between every building and empty lot, there is parking. Estimates vary, but experts say there are at least 3.4 and as many 8 parking spots for every car in the United States. One of the primary culprits? Parking minimums. Many cities have adopted these off-street parking minimums. It seems that, for every kind of land use and business, there are parking requirements to go with them. Some seem strangely arbitrary. Some towns may demand, for instance, that a barbershop must have 2 spaces per barber, but for a beauty shop 3 per beautician, or one parking space per 10 nuns at a nunnery, 3 per hole for a golf course or driving range, or one parking spot per 3,000 gallons of water at a public swimming pool.

There are also parking requirements based on building size. Some of these requirements result in parking lots that far exceed the size of the buildings they are mean to support. In a talk he gave in 2014, Donald Shoup uses San Jose, California as an example: