This website tells the story of the Riverside-Normal City (RNC) Neighborhood in Muncie, Indiana. In Fall 2016, students in Jen Erickson’s Ethnographic Methods class in the Department of Anthropology at Ball State University conducted archival research, participant observation, and interviews in order to understand how this neighborhood has changed over time. For much of the twentieth century, the RNC neighborhood was overwhelmingly comprised of middle- to upper-middle class white families. Today, 87 percent of neighborhood residents are college students. Building on the long history of Middletown Studies, we explain how this transformation occurred, and what it means for past and current neighborhood residents as well as the city more broadly. The website will be updated periodically as Professor Erickson and her students continue to research and write about the RNC neighborhood.
The Riverside/Normal City Neighborhood 