{"id":12180,"date":"2012-01-05T15:05:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T20:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12180"},"modified":"2012-01-05T15:05:59","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T20:05:59","slug":"gary-indiana-swears-in-first-black-female-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12180","title":{"rendered":"Gary, Indiana Swears In First Black Female Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the first day of the New Year, Indiana will receive its first ever African-American woman mayor. <strong>Karen Freeman-Wilson<\/strong>, 51, was sworn in on December 31st to lead one of the nation&#8217;s most depressed cities from the grip of stagnation towards genuine progress: Gary, Indiana.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a tough job, but as a native of the city, the new mayor is more than willing to take it on, &#8220;In many ways, I feel like Dorothy from Oz &#8212; there&#8217;s no place like home,&#8221; <strong>Freeman-Wilson<\/strong> said. Her official inauguration is January 7th.<\/p>\n<p>Once a thriving city boasting some 200,000 inhabitants, Gary has dwindled down to about 80,000, resembling a ghost town, rife with blight, crime, poverty and unemployment. Gary&#8217;s deterioration coincides with the decline of the auto industry and its largest employer, U.S. Steel. But <strong>Freeman-Wilson<\/strong> is hopeful she can turn things around for her hometown. Plans for revitalization include transportation development in the city&#8217;s downtown region, senior housing, attracting commerce, and tackling ever-present issue of crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the first day of the New Year, Indiana will receive its first ever African-American woman mayor. Karen Freeman-Wilson, 51, was sworn in on December 31st to lead one of the nation&#8217;s most depressed cities from the grip of stagnation towards genuine progress: Gary, Indiana. It&#8217;s a tough job, but as a native of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}