South Bend, Indiana
“Are we at Six Flags yet?”
South Bend is a "city" built along the southern bend of the St. Joseph river, thus giving you an idea of how clever its citizens are. The only two things it's good for (and this is stretching its merits pretty thin) is Notre Dame, and its "sister city" of Mishawaka. Why you care is beyond us, because you're probably never going to live here, and will more than likely pass it up on your way to more important cities like Chicago, Detroit, or Indianapolis. For those that do care, however, according to the 2000 US Census, there are over 100,000 people inside the city, and over 300,000 in its metropolitan area. These are surprising numbers, as we didn't even know South Bend was large enough to merit having its own "metropolitan area". Then again, if you purge the population of South Bend's homeless, you'll quickly find that the numbers are halved, in both cases.
South Bend is on the long, hard road to becoming a dead city, since its population is continually decreasing almost every decade since the 60s (especially if that purging the homeless thing ever happens, wink wink), and everything it's known for is either dead or dying. Studebaker? Gone. AM General? On the way out. Crowe Horwath, LLP? If you even know what they do, I'm gonna pop out of this monitor and bitch-slap you. Even its transportation system is telling you and its citizens to get the hell out as soon as possible, what with the electric rail service to Chicago, and the regional airport, which is only good for stopovers and flying out. So if the purging gets a little out of hand, you know where to go.
Despite all this, though, South Bend prides itself as much as it can on being the economic center of a make-believe region called "Michiana". You see, it's because it mixes the names of Indiana, and Michigan! South Bend's cleverosity is hard at work, as usual.
Everything You Never Wanted To Know About South Bend
Economy
Notre Dame. I'm not kidding on this one. The economy of South Bend is fully focused on Notre Dame. It may have been an industrialized city way back in the 1800s, but times change, and nobody gives half a damn about Studebakers, or any of the other things South Bend made back then, which aren't worth mentioning because they aren't being made anymore, which brings us back to why South Bend's economy is now focused on building as many hotels as possible so out of towners who don't know how to drive on the fucking roundabouts have a place to stay the day before they watch the Fighting Irish get stomped by some nobody team like the Purdue Boilermakers, or Central Missouri State Proctologists.
Recreation
Notre Dame. South Bend's Parks and Recreation project is a bona-fide letdown, because today's kids don't wanna walk around a park, or a zoo, or ride around on overpriced artificial whitewater rapid systems. Maybe if the Parks and Recreation department just had a big building with a bunch of couches, Nintendos, bags of Cheetos, and charged $3 for an all-day ticket, well jumpin' Jesus Christ, our economy would be through the roof.
You can also go to many of the swinging night clubs, which is kind of a joke, because the nightclubs around South Bend only play "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails 15 fucking times a night, and serve Appletinis to overly made up yet highly underdressed skanks who leave their purses at the door and jiggle nauseously, since over half of the nightclub patrons in South Bend are overweight.
Education
Notre Dame. But you could also attend some of the many fantastic lowlife colleges that South Bend has to offer, including Michiana College, Ivy Tech, ITT Tech, and Grads'R'Us. Notre Dame only feeds off of out-of-towners, because anyone living in South Bend since birth will never have the kind of academic competency for it. Even those who DO have academic competency will find their IQ dropping after only living a few years in town. One day you're an architectural engineer, the next day, you built a high school on the top of a fucking riverbed, and it's constantly sinking ever so slightly every year. Seriously.
Sports
Notre Dame. Or if you care enough, the South Bend Silver Hawks, but of course, the Silver Hawks make nowhere near as much money as the Fighting Irish, and ironically enough, they typically have a better record at the end of the season. You know how much South Bend hates the Silver Hawks? They hate it so much, the owner almost packed it up and left the city, it took the former mayor of South Bend to buy the team and keep it here, just so the average audience of 1,800 of 5,000 can come watch a home team actually win during dollar beer nights.
Media
Notr- oh wait. Holy shit, there's actually an aspect of South Bend that Notre Dame isn't choking with its oversized cock. Even its NBC affiliate, WNDU (can you guess what the call letters stand for?) was sold off by the owners in order to pay a fat check for Charlie Weiss's fat ass to dash the city's hopes of their Fighting Irish making it to a bowl game for a few more years, before they fire him.
When the news stations (and I mean all of them) aren't busy shoving 50-something, botox-abusing, menopausing bitch anchors down your throat to read you the latest news about a shooting, stabbing, or lynching for the case of gender equality, they'll start shoving douchebag meteorologists down your throat, who are way too aware that if there's a snowstorm or a tornado 60 miles away, it's their time to shine. Don't believe me? Google WNDU, WSBT, or WSJV.
The radio stations are just as bad, and any twist of the tuning knob for three seconds can land you an incredible array of music, ranging from shitty pop/rap/R&B, to shitty country, to shitty adult contemporary, to shitty classic rock, and shitty Christian rock. One station even boasts to serve you "today's best music", completely unaware that there would have to be good music in this day and age to merit having the best music.
Bloated Sense Of Caring And Self-Importance
As if it weren't bad enough that South Bend is just one gigantic fucking homeless shelter, there's also a shack for retards off to the side. They say South Bend is known for its very generous citizens, which must be true, because the damned soup kitchens are always packed, idiots are buying bricks to have their names put on them before being laid out as the walkway to said retard shack, and not a year goes buy where a television station isn't hosting a "save the holidays for a poor family" campaign, or a "walk the track of a middle school" campaign to fight breast cancer. These are often hosted by the cranky 50-something bitch anchors we talked about earlier.
Fun fact: 29% of South Bend's housing are "Habitat for Humanity" homes.