Economist Morton Marcus told the Lake County Advancement Committee it is time to dump Indiana University and Purdue and to get on board with the South Shore commuter rail line — just not the extension to Dyer.
Speaking at the group's annual meeting at Teibel's Restaurant on Friday, Marcus spun out a few other self-styled "heresies" including clearing the lakefront of industry so it can develop into something resembling Chicago's lakefront.
"The steel companies still think in terms of their greatest years," Marcus said. "But their greatest years are gone."
Marcus said those companies don't have to clear out tomorrow, but it's obvious some planning has to be done for what comes next.
"Let's just not be surprised someday that they are gone," he said. "Let's prepare for that."
As for Indiana and Purdue, Marcus was not advocating for the closure of the state universities. Instead, he was advocating for what he dubbed "Independence University" a combination of the resources of Purdue Calumet, Purdue North-Central and Indiana University Northwest.
That combination would become an institution independent of the state universities whose names they currently bear, Marcus said. The ties with the larger institutions only holds them back for now, he said.
Marcus, whose weekly column is carried by The Times, often goes after the sacred cows of economic development in the region and didn't hold back on Friday. Marcus is former director of the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and was adviser to six different Indiana governors on taxation and economic development.
He questioned why leaders in Northwest Indiana are so anxious to connect to the city of Chicago, which they have termed an "economic juggernaut," with the South Shore and its extension.
He pointed out some ways in which Northwest Indiana has actually outpaced Chicago when it comes to economic growth. Those included a 2.8 percent increase in total wages and salaries in the four-county Northwest Indiana area from 2003 to 2013 as compared to just a 2.3 percent increase in total wages and salaries in Cook County.
In a similar 10-year period, 2005 to 2015, total private employment in greater Chicago dropped 3.5 percent while it actually increased 1.2 percent in Northwest Indiana.
Marcus' comments did not go without some push back from his audience, with some of them involved in economic development and some of the region's boldest planning initiatives.
Former Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority chairman Leigh Morris advised Marcus to read the latest update of the Marquette Plan for lake shore development, which also anticipates the further opening up of the lakefront to tourism and development.