Eleven small communities in Northwest Indiana have new U.S. Census Bureau bragging rights.
The new Census-designated places, along with the number of people per square mile, are Boone Grove, 100; Duneland Beach, 400; Lake Eliza, 1,002; Leroy, 385; Malden, 194; Ross, 1,188; Saugany Lake, 270; South Center, 120; Stillwell, 22; Union Mills, 368; and Wellsboro, 1,874.
Their population and amount of housing, combined with other characteristics, qualified them for official status.
None of these communities is an actual town because they’re unincorporated, but they have some of the characteristics of tiny towns, spatial analyst Grace Benninger told the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s Economy and Place Committee on Thursday.
Ross, Lake Eliza and Wellsboro were the ones with the most population density.
Benninger offered demographic insights as part of an update on the agency’s NWI 2050+ comprehensive plan, which is undergoing a biennial update.
Regionwide, the population is aging, the result of a low birth rate and a low death rate.
That means fewer working-age people are supporting a growing number of adults living longer because of improvements in health care.
Benninger looked at population changes over time across Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties.
“There are large increases in cities and towns that are along our urban edge, and then in the urban core, especially in Lake County, you can see the population is maintained or slightly decreased,” she said.
Areas with the most total gains include St. John, Crown Point and Cedar Lake. At the other end of the scale, with the most total population loss, are Gary, East Chicago and Hammond.
By percentage change, the biggest increases are Hanna, 116%; Winfield, 60%; and St. John, 46%. The biggest losers were Shelby, -69%; Rolling Prairie, -58%; and Kingsbury, -45%.
Planning Manager Emam Ibrahim examined development issues. In recent years, development has been happening around the perimeter of communities, rather than scattered across the counties as previously happened, she said. That helps preserve farmland.
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Even so, the region has lost more than 9,000 acres of farmland used for cultivated crops between 2014 and 2024 and nearly 2,000 acres of pasture in that same time.
That raised concerns at the meeting about whether the local food supply chain is being stressed in the name of development. Was that farmland producing crops for local consumption or for distant areas?
Local farmers might be better able to answer that question, Union Township Trustee George Topoll, who chairs the committee, suggested.
Also to be considered is how the proliferation of solar farms and data centers since 2024 will affect the numbers on loss of farmland in the future.
Director of Environmental Programs Kathy Luther offered a brighter picture of brownfields. Of the 1,640 sites identified in Northwest Indiana, 80% are in economic use, she said.
“Some of these sites were cleaned up 20, 30 years ago, but they’re still on the map.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.