South Bend developed around heavy industry (led by Studebaker) and education (led by the University of Notre Dame). With the decline of industry in South Bend (and a lot of the rust-belt for that matter), South Bend now relies heavily on its proximity to Notre Dame. Education is now the driving force around South Bend. Although Notre Dame itself is separate from South Bend, you see traces of the university everywhere in South Bend. The interesting thing is that Notre Dame pretty much keeps to itself; and unlike a lot of other colleges, it owns all of the property surrounding the campus to give it a "buffer" from the rest of South Bend.
When I was in South Bend last week, I stayed downtown. Since I was basically just in South Bend to visit Notre Dame, I wanted to stay close to campus....and downtown South Bend is just 5 minutes from campus. Unlike downtown Ann Arbor (see prior post), downtown South Bend is not the quaint downtown you would expect near a major university. I would suspect that is because the Notre Dame campus is pretty much self-contained and there is no need for a traditional college town downtown area.
A far as gyms go, I was hoping to workout at the Notre Dame campus gym....but even as an alumni I could not get in. I was able to find a pretty nice gym to work out at in the South Bend area. Pinnacle Athletic Club is about 5 minutes from downtown South Bend in the city of Mishawaka. Although the gym is currently under renovation, it has great equipment and I am told the locker room and other facilities will be nice as well once the renovation is completed.
If you go to South Bend, you definitely need to venture over to the Notre Dame campus and walk around. Although I an somewhat biased (since I graduated from Notre Dame), I think the Notre Dame campus is one of the most beautiful of any university in the country. One thing you will also notice is how hot the guys are at Notre Dame. Since the university only admits well-rounded students, the type of guy this usually attracts is the high school student-athlete. So when you walk around campus, you will notice a lot of hot A&F-type college boys.
For those of you that do not recognize the picture at the top of this post, that is the Golden Dome. It rises above the main administration building in the center of the Notre Dame campus.
