Fort Wayne is a growing city. New neighborhoods, new businesses and new families continue to expand our footprint.
Yet at the same time, discussions about reducing the police budget raise serious concerns about whether our public safety infrastructure is keeping pace with that growth.
When a city expands but its police and fire protection shrink, the result is predictable: rising crime, slower emergency response and a decline in the stability that attracts new residents and employers.
Across the country, cities that failed to maintain adequate public safety staffing have paid a steep price. Detroit is one of the most widely studied examples.
During the city’s 2013 bankruptcy, police staffing collapsed. The department was losing officers at a rate of nearly one a day at points and response times to the highest-priority calls stretched past 40 minutes, compared with roughly 14 minutes today after years of rebuilding the force.
Those years of thin staffing coincided with continued population loss, from a peak of 1.8 million residents in 1950 to fewer than 640,000 today as families and employers looked elsewhere for stability.
St. Louis has faced similar issues.
The city’s population has fallen from a peak of roughly 850,000 in 1950 to fewer than 280,000 today, a decline that tracks decades of high violent-crime rates alongside stalled neighborhood revitalization.
A national study published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, surveying more than 500 entrepreneurs and prospective employees, found that safety risk ranks as their top concern when choosing where to launch a business or take a job ahead of taxes and regulations.
Even with strong cultural assets and a central location, inadequate public safety has repeatedly undermined growth.
Memphis provides another cautionary example.
Local reporting has documented how rising crime in commercial districts has squeezed small businesses and shaken customer and investor confidence, a pattern researchers were describing decades ago and that persists today. The Greater Memphis Chamber has itself linked public safety directly to neighborhood stability and employer investment.
When companies evaluate where to build offices, data centers or logistics hubs, public safety metrics remain among the first factors they review.
These cities demonstrate a clear pattern: When public safety erodes, growth stalls.
Fort Wayne has an opportunity to avoid these mistakes.
Our city has momentum: new housing developments, expanding commercial corridors and a growing regional presence. But momentum is fragile.
If police and fire budgets fall behind population growth, we risk creating conditions that make neighborhoods less stable and discourage new families from choosing Fort Wayne as their home.
Public safety is not simply a cost; it is an investment in economic competitiveness.
Companies in high-value industries — including information technology, cybersecurity, cloud engineering and advanced manufacturing — look for cities with predictable emergency response times, stable neighborhoods and strong civic infrastructure. These industries bring higher-paying jobs and expand the tax base, strengthening the city’s long-term financial health.
If Fort Wayne wants to attract top employees, we must ensure that our police and fire departments have the resources they need to keep pace with growth. Cutting public safety budgets during expansion risks undermining the very progress our city has worked so hard to achieve.
Fort Wayne deserves to be a city where families feel safe, businesses feel confident investing and public safety professionals have the tools they need to protect a growing community.
Maintaining strong police and fire protection is essential to keeping our city desirable, competitive and prepared for the future.
Cory Trast of Leo-Cedarville is a senior software engineer.
