Muncie shares some parallels to its TV city copycat.
“Muncie is a lovely city.” – Leslie Knope
It’s not every day you hear Indiana towns like Muncie referenced on television. In 2009, the Golden Globe nominated show Parks and Recreation premiered on NBC. The show takes place in the fictional town, Pawnee, Indiana, and follows the adventures of the local parks and recreation department employees, led by Deputy Director Leslie Knope.
The fictional town’s map might look familiar. Flip it upside down, and it becomes Muncie. While the maps are very similar, the governments are even more similar. Fact-checker Greg Levine tried to model Pawnee’s city government after that of Muncie and Bloomington by checking the two cities’ websites. But how closely related are Muncie and Pawnee?
Parks and Recreation
The Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department is pretty active. They go from fixing swings, cleaning rivers, and scraping slugs off sidewalks to hosting huge concerts with the artist Ginuwine. One of the biggest projects was the Harvest Festival, an event where the department somehow fit an entire amusement park in the middle of town. More than 80,000 people attended, which is over 20,000 more than the population.
But the whole show revolved around a pit. First, they had to fill in the pit, then they wanted the pit to become a park. It was a project that lasted six seasons with many bumps in the road and caused disputes in season seven.
There isn’t much pit filling going on in Muncie, but the parks and recreation department does have a lot of different things to do. The parks department presides over Tuhey Pool, Prairie Creek Reservoir, Muncie Urban Forestry, and 28 local parks.
On Feb. 11-13, the Indiana State Convention took place in Muncie. For all the basketball lovers, the department is hosting the First Annual Parks and Recreation Five on Five Gun Violence Awareness Basketball Tournament on March 25 and 26 at the Union Baptist Church.
City Council
In Pawnee, the elections for city council go hard. There are live, televised debates, parties hosted by the candidates, and candidates even have their own tour buses. In the show, Leslie Knope becomes the second woman in Pawnee history to run for city council. Once elected, she tries to implement a soda tax and a program to teach sex education to senior citizens. She gets a lot of backlash as a woman and for her political views. The other council members are men of all different backgrounds including a racist old man, a manipulative dentist, and a sex-crazed maniac.
In Muncie, the nine-person city council isn’t quite as scandalous. However, last summer the city had planned to build a steel-dust recycling plant which raised health concerns for many citizens.
The city council had approved the old BorgWarner site to become the home of the new plant with hopes of creating jobs. Residents were upset about the decision, feeling that they hadn’t had a say in the matter. Worries about zinc contaminating air and soil caused a local realtor to receive 12 phone calls within 24 hours of citizens wishing to move. In the wake of the controversy, a citizen forum was held led by a city council committee meeting. On August 20, 2019, a press conference was held by the City of Muncie to announce that building plans had been called off.
Health
In Parks and Recreation, Pawnee has a town slogan of “First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity.” Fourth in obesity as in the entire country. The residents are known for complaining about health foods, and even ran their one salad restaurant out of business. Sweetums Candy Factory employs one-third of the town. Paunch Burger is the most popular restaurant. In the episode “Soda Tax”, they introduced a 512-ounce drink called “child size” because it was roughly the size of a liquified child.
Muncie isn’t near the fourth most obese city in the country, but it is in one of the most obese counties in Indiana. Nearly 31% of Delaware County residents were considered obese in 2019. According to County Health Rankings, Delaware County is ranked 81 out of 92 counties in Indiana for overall health. While there isn’t a Paunch Burger or a 512-ounce soda, Muncie is home to 195 restaurants.
Poor vs. Rich
In Pawnee, the economy isn’t the greatest, and they certainly don’t have the fanciest stores. However, just outside of Pawnee is their rival: Eagleton. According to the show, Pawnee was not located in the most glamorous location, so the richest residents moved to the nicest area and created their own town, Eagleton.
In Eagleton, everything is a step up from Pawnee. They even purchased HBO for their entire town as mentioned in the episode “The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic.” By the sixth season it was discovered that Eagleton was in massive debt, and they were forced to merge with Pawnee.
Muncie had a similar story back in the early 1900’s. In 1903, there existed a posh neighborhood called Riverside that wished to become independent from Muncie. Some residents created the Riverside City Improvement Club to try to work on needed street and sewer improvements.
Eventually, they were able to become incorporated as Riverside City. This was something many residents were unhappy about because it meant an increase in taxes. However, the improvements were eventually made. To help keep the city classy, a $10 fine for loose chickens was put in place. It didn’t stay incorporated for long because Muncie was rapidly expanding. In June 1919, Riverside was annexed back into Muncie. Today, it is now the Riverside Historic District located in northwest Muncie.
There may not be 512-ounce sodas or large community concerts that are similar to Coachella in Muncie, but the two towns do have some parallels. Plus, it’s not the first time Muncie has been modeled as a typical midwestern town, and it may not be the last. Researchers love the city and so does Jerry/Larry/Garry Gergich, a character on the show. Muncie is his favorite vacation spot, can you blame him?
Pawnee vs. Muncie: By the numbers
Pawnee, Indiana (fictional)
First incorporated: 1817
De-incorporated (due to famine, corruption and other problems): 1818
Re-incorporated: 1918
Muncie, Indiana (real)
Platted: 1827 (as Munsee Town)
Incorporated as a town: 1854
Incorporated as a city: 1865
