Welcome To Indianapolis SAFeDATA

Indianapolis is the capital city of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. The 2000 Census counted the city`s populus (excluding included towns) at 781,870. It is Indiana`s most thickly settled city and is the 13th largest city in the U.S., the third largest city in the Midwest, and the second most thickly settled Capital in the U.S., behind Phoenix, Arizona.

Indianapolis has shed its image as a Rust Belt city, due in part to an aggressive downtown revitalization campaign. The diversification of the city`s economic base since the 1960s has also contributed to this transformation. A large part of this diversification involves the holding of events, especially sporting events. The labels of The Amateur Sports Capital of the World, and The Racing Capital of the World, have both been applied to Indianapolis. The city has hosted the 1987 Pan US Games, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, the US Grand Prix (2000-2007), and is perhaps most famous for the annual Indianapolis 500. The attendance at both the Indianapolis 500 and the Allstate 400 makes them the largest two single day sporting events in the world, with well over 250,000 fans in attendance at each. Indianapolis has the second most monuments inside city limits, behind only Washington D.C.. There have also been two US Navy vessels named after Indianapolis, including the famous USS Indianapolis (CA-35) which suffered the worst single at-sea loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy.

Indianapolis was selected for the site as the new state capital in 1820. Jeremiah Sullivan, a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court, invented the name Indianapolis by joining Indiana with polis, the Greek word for city; literally, Indianapolis means "Indiana City". The city was founded on the White River under the incorrect assumption that the river would serve as a major transportation artery; however, the waterway was too sandy for trade. The capital moved from Corydon on January 10, 1825 and the state commissioned Alexander Ralston to design the new capital city. Ralston was an apprentice to the French architect Pierre L`Enfant, and he helped L`Enfant plan Washington, DC. Ralston`s original plan for Indianapolis called for a city of only one square mile (3 km²), and, at the center of the city, sat the Governor`s Circle, a large circular commons, which was to be the site of the Governor`s mansion. Meridian and Market Streets converge at the Circle and continue N and south and east and west, respectively. The Governor`s mansion was finally demolished in 1857 and in its place stands a 284-foot (87 m) tall neoclassical limestone and bronze monument, the Indiana Soldiers` and Sailors` Monument. The surrounding street is now known as Monument Circle.

The city lies on the original east-west National Road. The first railroad to service Indianapolis, the Madison & Indianapolis, began operation on October 1, 1847, and subsequent railroad connections made expansive growth possible. Indianapolis was the home of the first Union Station, or common rail passenger terminal, in the US. By the turn of the century, Indianapolis had become a heavy automobile manufacturer, rivaling the likes of Detroit. With roads leading out of the city at all directions, Indianapolis was on its way to becoming a major hub of regional transport connecting to Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis, as is befitting the capital of a state whose motto is "The Crossroads of America." This same network of roads would allow quick and easy access to subcitified areas in future years. Natural gas and oil deposits in the surrounding area in the late 19th century helped the economy of Indianapolis prosper. City populus grew rapidly throughout the first half of the twentieth century. During this period, rapid subcitifiedization began to take place, and racial relations deteriorated throughout the 1960s, although, on the night that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Indianapolis was the only major city in which rioting did not occur. Many credit a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, who was in town campaigning for President that night, for helping to calm the tensions. Tragically, his life was cut short a few months later in California. Racial tensions heightened in 1970 with the passage of Unigov, which further isolated the middle class from Indianapolis`s growing African US community. Court-ordered school desegregation busing by Judge S. Hugh Dillon was also a controversial change.

The opening of Circle Centre Mall in downtown Indianapolis signaled a revitalization continued. Currently, the city is experiencing growth in the hospitality industry with the Convention Center expansion and the construction of Lucas Oil Stadium. A new Conrad Hotel will be built to add more hotel rooms. This adds to the growing list of downtown accommodations and restaurants. Indianapolis International Airport is currently building a new midfield airfield terminal. Both the stadium and aiport are expected to open late in 2008 with the hotel and convention center sometime in 2010.

For the past decade, crime rates inside Indianapolis city limits have fluctuated greatly. In the late 1990s, vicious crimes in inner-city neighborhoods located inside the old city limits (pre-consolidation) peaked. The former IPD police district, which serves about 37% of the county`s total populus and has a geographic area covering mostly the old pre-consolidation city limits, recorded 130 homicides in 1998 to avg approximately 40.3 homicides per 100,000 people. This is over 6 times the 1998 national homicide avg of 6.3 per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, the former Marion County Sheriff`s Department district serving the remaining 63% of the county`s populus, which includes the majority of the residents in the Consolidated City, recorded only 32 homicides in 1998, averaging about 5.9 murders per 100,000 people, slightly less than the 1998 national homicide avg.Homicides in the IPD police district dropped dramatically in 1999 and have remained lower through 2005. In 2005, the IPD police district recorded 88 homicides to avg 27.3 homicides per 100,000 people; nonetheless, the murder rate in the IPD district is still almost 5 times the 2005 national avg.