Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

It's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.

Then again, that stretch also has Gary.

Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc.

If you read the history of westward expansion, "got tired and decided this was good enough" is literally true for how much of the area got initially settled (by white people)

Gary is also interesting, though. It used to be interesting for good economic and cultural reasons, then bad reasons. Now it's experiencing some revitalization in the manner of Detroit or Rockford, which might actually make it more boring, though better to live in.

I thought the Indiana aside was odd as an objective assessment, but it worked well as a flavorful bit of travel writing to help me understand the perspective of the visitor to Greenland.

Gary is fine during the day compared to a lot of the surrounding areas because the population is actually fairly diverse. White, black, latino, there are enough of you that it's possible to blend in as long as you dress poor enough. If you aren't into drugs or banging and out during daylight hours and don't flash valuable you'll probably be fine.

Vs. say some parts Cleveland, where I've been robbed at gunpoint the second my vehicle broke down and people noticed I'm not from around there.