Where Is The Rust Belt?
 

As some may know, I've been spending the last 6 years taking photos of every single historic church of the Rust Belt before they close. My question is, does this map represent the region that is the rust belt or is it more confined? My experience after living in Pittsburgh for 7 years is that most towns and cities within a 7 hour drive of here, minus D.C. and NYC are complete crap holes with some or many exceptions. To me, the Rust Belt extends from most towns and cities from St. Louis north to Milwaukee, south to Louisville and over to Utica, NY and then all of WV, most of PA, and all the towns and cities located along the Ohio River Valley. The only exceptions to the Rust Belt with population gain are certain areas of Pittsburgh, Baltimore, most of Columbus, only some hoods of Cleveland, etc. Most small towns in the entire rust belt, minus some college towns are completely destroyed. Anyways, does this map to you represent what is the Rust Belt?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...73a0e858_o.jpgrust-belt-map1
https://beltmag.com/mapping-rust-belt/

it starts in albany and ends in st louis. these days though, i think cultural and historic lines are becoming blurred. were seeing decay and revival in the same city. black people are leaving the north for the south, white hipsters are moving back to city centers. malls are dying but start ups and virtual economies are thriving....its a big demographic and economic cuisinart......the midwest will probably always be in flux but as long as populations stay stable or even have mild growth, id say none of these towns are rusty anymore.....every town has a stable side and a poor side. i think were just seeing the end result of reurbanization and the continuation of redlining.....

Complete crap holes? Completely destroyed?

I just noticed Ohio is the only state entirely in that Rust Belt map.

Got me thinking of this.

• Video Link

Funny not. LOL


The entire state of Ohio is not rust belt. Good portions of Ohio are doing really well economically. If you don't believe it I can provide links. But take my word for it.


What a crappy map. Was that from like 1990?

Even Chicago is tech now. Manufacturing has left other than a few big projects still working. This map looks and acts like two decades ago.

And Baltimore has recovered lol. What a creepy map.

meanwhile in the rust belt:

FCA to open Jeep factory in Detroit, invest $4.5 billion in southeast Michigan

https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...uv/2989129002/

GM to invest $3 billion at Detroit-Hamtramck for electric truck

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...ck/4017189002/

although I'm pissed about Lordstown assembly, my next door neighbor growing up worked there (thanks americans, for disdaining american made vehicles).

maybe one of our great silicon valley gnostic capitalists can buy the factory for high-volume electric car production.

Inside Fiat Chrysler's Toledo turnaround

https://www.foxbusiness.com/industri...edo-turnaround

whats this?

Once US’s ‘Economic Laggard,’ Michigan’s Economy Is Succeeding Where Ontario’s Has Failed; Here’s Why

https://www.theepochtimes.com/once-u...y_3103255.html

I take it you don't like the map? :cheers:

The map must've been made by a resident of Pittsburgh.

According to the map, Pitt "recovered" [despite it's MSA having negative population growth this decade -- -1.34%]. Meanwhile Chicago never "recovered" and the most successful city in terms of population growth, Columbus +11%, isn't even on the map. Columbus MSA has also passed up Cleveland MSA.

Not all of Ohio is/was the rust belt. Columbus is not listed on the map because it never was a rust belt city/was never dominated by manufacturing-it has always had a more diversified economy. I would also say the same for most of Central Ohio. Columbus would certainly be listed as a recovered rust belt city if it had ever been one.


I think having /being dominated by lots of manufacturing and then losing it is more of the definition of rust belt-from all of the old manufacturing plants abandoned and "rusting"-at least that is how I always thought of it.

https://via.library.depaul.edu/mom/29/ -dominant industry in 1950-Columbus is the only one listed as "administration"-although the map is supposed to represent rust belt cities and includes Columbus?

i think illinois looks pretty accurate...st. louis is effectively an extension of this with its local coal mines and the iron/lead mines in missouri.

used to be interurbans criss-crossing the prairie around galesburg between the minor manufacturing towns like kewanee (huge boiler factory). its effectively a constellation of small rustbelt cities set in a "corn sky."

thank god somebody finally started a rust belt thread.

People are picking apart the map but miss the fact the Erie, Wilkes-Barre, Cincinnati to name a few are misspelled...

eerie -- and a bias halo around pitts -- perfect for halloween tho :slob:

actually not bad if you want to focus on the small towns and leave out the cols/indy if that is your purpose -- which i think it is. :tup:

Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are recovered rust belt cities but no Chicago? Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, and Indianapolis should have some green around them.

that image is 10 years old and was 10 years behind at least when created.

I don't think Grand Rapids was ever really Rust Belt. Muskegon probably is, though.

That map should probably not be colored yellow in Michigan for points west of Lansing... Maybe even points west of Wayne County (Detroit). Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County is mostly the opposite of Rust Belt, with Ypsilanti being the debatable exception. Benton Harbor and Muskegon seem like the only true contenders for Rust Belt status west of Lansing, but they aren't the primary cities. Ypsilanti also isn't the primary city in Washtenaw County.

I've always gotten the impression that after Chicago, places like Kansas City, Columbus, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids and Minneapolis/St. Paul best represented the Midwest's attempts to shake it's Rust Belt image, at least over the past several decades.

Then again, there's places like Cincinnati that were never really Rust Belt.

Baltimore, Camden, and Reading were never the Rust Belt. Massachusetts was never the Rust Belt. Just because a place had manufacturing 75-100 years ago doesn't mean it's the Rust Belt.

Maybe someone can correct me, but the Rust Belt is generally accepted to be Midwest/Great Lakes cities that saw industries leave when Japan became a giant, and were run down for a couple decades. The Rust Belt is based on what happened in the 1970s and 1980s. Not every place in the Rust Belt is part of the Rust Belt, but the Rust Belt generally is Buffalo, western Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, southeast/southern Michigan, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois. At least that is what I have always thought it was.