Chris Arnade spent a decade traveling the parts of the U.S. where tourists don’t go. Then he moved on to the rest of the world—and wrote about it on his Substack. But this past week, after Charlie Kirk’s assassination lit the world on fire, Arnade found himself back in America, in the small manufacturing town of Michigan City, Indiana.
Michigan City is, he wrote in his latest essay, one of the most ordinary towns in the U.S. Its citizens are preoccupied not with the political vitriol dominating social media, but with the fundamentals of an authentic life: taking care of family, cherishing friends, and relishing in strangers’ kindness. We’re delighted to reprint that essay today. —The Editors
Michigan City, Indiana, is so unassuming, modest, and reserved as to be inconspicuous to a fault. “You are going where?” was the common refrain, when I said I was going there. “Michigan City? Which city in Michigan? Oh, Michigan City, as in that weird city in Indiana, not Michigan? The one between Chesterton and New Buffalo? Why are you going there?”
People told me the city had nothing but problems. They said it’s where the state’s maximum-security prison is. They couldn’t understand why I’d want to go there—and honestly, I hadn’t planned to.
