Where Is The Rust Belt?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

How much of that 'growth' is just sprawl moving out to counties that already had significant population centers? If the Detroit Metro sprawled out to Washtenaw and Genesee counties, Ann Arbor and Flint would be added to the CSA total, thus making it appear like the CSA is growing when it's really just sprawling. Cleveland could have a bit of the same scenario given all the smaller population centers that exist in NE Ohio. But Cleveland's home county (Cuyahoga) directly abuts Akron's home county (Summit), so less sprawl was needed to connect the two. Really, Cleveland and Akron should be a single MSA, but I guess that's a different discussion!

I calculated using the current CSA definition so that it was consistent.

The ratio of core MSA to CSA has has been between 80-86% since 1920. It has started to slide back towards 80% in recent decades, which it hasn't dipped below since the early 1900s, but has yet to fall below that threshold. Metro Detroit's counties have pretty large land areas, and Wayne is still the only one that has been almost completely built out. So despite how far from the city the region has sprawled, it is still mostly contained in the original footprint of the MSA.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I calculated using the current CSA definition so that it was consistent.

The ratio of core MSA to CSA has has been between 80-86% since 1920. It has started to slide back towards 80% in recent decades, which it hasn't dipped below since the early 1900s, but has yet to fall below that threshold. Metro Detroit's counties have pretty large land areas, and Wayne is still the only one that has been almost completely built out. So despite how far from the city the region has sprawled, it is still mostly contained in the original footprint of the MSA.

I guess the only exception is Ann Arbor which is linked to the main urban footprint. And of course, Detroit has been "invading" Flint and Monroe for a while. Note how much faster southeastern Genesee and northern Monroe grow: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/usa/michigan/admin/ . And of course, Livingston. Insane growth rates till recently. The classic American booming exurb.

To me "Detroit metro area" is Detroit CSA minus Lenawee County.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I guess the only exception is Ann Arbor which is linked to the main urban footprint. And of course, Detroit has been "invading" Flint and Monroe for a while. Note how much faster southeastern Genesee and northern Monroe grow: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/usa/michigan/admin/ . And of course, Livingston. Insane growth rates till recently. The classic American booming exurb.

To me "Detroit metro area" is Detroit CSA minus Lenawee County.

Yes, Ann Arbor (Washtenaw County) is directly west of Wayne County. The city of Ann Arbor created a Green Belt almost 20 years ago which was in part aimed at blocking sprawl from Wayne County.

Oakland County does sprawl north towards Flint along the I-75 corridor, but there are still large parts of northern Oakland that remain quasi rural.

[Steely Dan]

this article is several years old now, but still totally pertinent to this discussion of "what is rust-belt" and how Gary fits into the story.

Gary is probably ground-zero for illustrating how industrial automation killed the american working class dream.

White flight followed factory jobs out of Gary, Indiana. Black people didn't have a choice


the article really drives home how, even in towns like Gary where the local steel mill didn't close down, automation utterly destroyed employment numbers. and then, like in so many other rust belt cities, as the jobs started evaporating, all of the white people moved away, either to the burbs or beyond, leaving behind a super-majority black, hollowed-out shell of a city in ruins in their wake.



also, this quote from the article really stood out to me:

Sitting next to Walter is a childhood friend, Ruben Roy, 85, who joins him daily for coffee and a chat. Ruben listens and nods yes, and then adds: “I started off working with a shovel and pick, shoveling and picking at things, but those jobs are gone. They got machines to shovel and pick now. The world has changed. Back in my day you needed a strong back and a weak mind to get a job. Now you need a weak back and a strong mind.”

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Massive flight from urban centers resulting in an ever-expanding "metro area" does not mask decline.

you mean St. Louis County expanding into the ozark mountains with a million people didnt mask an apocalyptic urban collapse?

Actually it kind of did locally, the SW outskirts of StL feel like Atlanta or Nashville.

[Steely Dan]

here's a list of all US municpalities that once peaked over 50,000 people and now have less than half of their peak peak population as of census 2020:


City................................Peak..........2020......Percentage Drop

Highland Park, MI.............52,959..........8,977.......-83.0%
East St. Louis, IL.............82,366...........18,469......-77.6%
Johnstown, PA................67, 327..........18,411......-72.7%
McKeesport, PA...............55,355...........17,727......-68.0%
Detroit, MI.....................1,849,568.......639,111.....-65.4%
St. Louis, MO..................856,796.........301,578.....-64.8%
Youngstown, OH..............170,002.........60,068.......-64.7%
Gary, IN.........................178,320.........69,093.......-61.3%
Cleveland, OH.................914,808.........372,624......-59.3%
Flint, MI.........................196,940.........81,252.......-58.7%
Wheeling, WV..................61,659...........27,052......-56.1%
Pittsburgh, PA.................676,806.........302,971.....-55.2%
Saginaw, MI....................98,265..........44,202.......-55.0%
East Chicago, IN..............57,669...........26,370......-54.3%
Niagara Falls, NY..............102,394.........48,671.......-52.5%
Buffalo, NY.....................580,132.........278,349......-52.0%
Chester, PA......................66,039..........32,605.......-50.6%



when we map them out, it's a pretty good proxy for "where is the rust belt?"

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Emprise du Lion

I'd honestly say that ESTL is worse than Gary. There's just honestly not much left of its urban glory heyday.

Yeah, if you wanna use population loss as a proxy, ESL is in a class of its own in the US.


Here's a list of every US city that once peaked above 75K that has since lost over 50% of that population as of 2020.

City.............................Peak..........2020......Percentage Drop

East St. Louis, IL.........82,366...........18,469......-77.6%
Detroit, MI.................1,849,568.......639,111.....-65.4%
St. Louis, MO..............856,796.........301,578.....-64.8%
Youngstown, OH.........170,002.........60,068.......-64.7%
Gary, IN........................178,320.........69,093.......-61.3%
Cleveland, OH.............914,808.........372,624......-59.3%
Flint, MI.......................196,940..........81,252.......-58.7%
Pittsburgh, PA.............676,806........302,971......-55.2%
Saginaw, MI.................98,265...........44,202.......-55.0%
Niagara Falls, NY.........102,394.........48,671.......-52.5%
Buffalo, NY..................580,132.........278,349......-52.0%

Note: if Buffalo can sustain its growth from last decade, it will likely leave this list in 2030!!



ESL, Youngstown, Gary, Flint and Saginaw are a bit different from the other larger cities above because they never amassed the necessary urban gravity to survive the post-war de-urbanization onslaught.


And while Gary has certainly taken it on the chin, it's downtown still seems a bit more intact than ESL's, at least structurally, if not really functionally.

Also, Gary is 25 miles SE of downtown Chicago, so the relationship is quite a bit different than these "directly opposite downtown on the other side of the river" places like ESL.

Gary is tucked away in a mostly forgotten corner of Chicagoland, far removed from the center of the action, while in STL, if you go up the arch and look east, ESL is right there, laid out straight in front of you in all of its mostly abandoned glory.

[LAsam]

^Those percentage drops are astounding, but even more so is the quantitative drop for Detroit... 1.2 million people. It's lost more people than either St Louis or Cleveland ever had in total at their respective peaks.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by LAsam

^Those percentage drops are astounding, but even more so is the quantitative drop for Detroit... 1.2 million people. It's lost more people than either St Louis or Cleveland ever had in total at their respective peaks.

Detroit's population loss is nearly the same as the current population of Dallas. It holds the record for largest population number drop of any city in the history of the United States. The only thing comparable to Detroit's population drops are wartime era drops in European cities during the world wars. The expectation of decline became far too normalized.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by LAsam

^Those percentage drops are astounding, but even more so is the quantitative drop for Detroit... 1.2 million people. It's lost more people than either St Louis or Cleveland ever had in total at their respective peaks.

As I like to say, it lost a Buffalo Metro in population.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LAsam

^Those percentage drops are astounding, but even more so is the quantitative drop for Detroit... 1.2 million people. It's lost more people than either St Louis or Cleveland ever had in total at their respective peaks.

The numerical drop for Detroit is perhaps a bit eye-opening, but it's really the percentage that matters.

I mean, Chicago lost ~925,000 people from 1950 - 2010, but as that was only a 25% drop, it wasn't nearly as broadly damaging to the city.


What's more, as I mentioned earlier, Detroit and the other larger cities on that list got big enough to really become serious centers of urban gravity, such that even as city neighborhoods emptied out, enough big assets remained central enough for at least the downtown cores to survive the worst of the urban dark ages. The smaller places like ESL, Gary, Flint, etc. had much less luck on that front, with the downtowns of ESL and Gary becoming almost entirely irrelevant in a functional sense.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The numerical drop for Detroit is perhaps a bit eye-opening, but it's really the percentage that matters.

I mean, Chicago lost ~925,000 people from 1950 - 2010, but as that was only a 25% drop, it wasn't nearly as broadly damaging to the city.


What's more, as I mentioned earlier, Detroit and the other larger cities on that list got big enough to really become serious centers of urban gravity, such that even as city neighborhoods emptied out, enough big assets remained central enough for at least the downtown cores to survive the worst of the urban dark ages. The smaller places like ESL, Gary, Flint, etc. had much less luck on that front, with the downtowns of ESL and Gary becoming almost entirely irrelevant in a functional sense.

We've discussed this before, but really, it's the percentage drop in households that mattered, not the drop in population. A lot of the drop in population was due to declining household size, and less kids isn't anywhere near as damaging to the built fabric of the area.

I don't have the numbers handy at the moment, but I know Pittsburgh had larger household sizes than most of its peers in 1950, and quite small households by 2010, so a disproportionate drop was due to a fall in the number of kids. In contrast, Detroit actually went through a period where household size was rising back in the mid/late 20th century (back when black families were still larger than white families) meaning the overall decline in the number of households was worse than the decline in the number of people would suggest.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

We've discussed this before, but really, it's the percentage drop in households that mattered, not the drop in population. A lot of the drop in population was due to declining household size, and less kids isn't anywhere near as damaging to the built fabric of the area.

Quite true.

This familiar chart is instructive of your point.

[Crawford]

Detroit often had (short-term) population increases immediately following white flight. This is bc the departing whites were often elderly empty nesters (departing via suburbanization or passing away), and the incoming blacks were often younger families with children. So you'd see school overcrowding and the like, even as the long-term neighborhood fundamentals were shattered.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Quite true.

This familiar chart is instructive of your point.

I think it helps to understand this through population so, using your numbers, I normalized the 1950 population for these cities to each city's 2020 household size:


2020 actual population minus 1950 normalized to HH sizes

• Philadelphia: 1,603,797 - 1,435,586 = 168,211 (11.7%)
• Milwaukee: 577,222 - 551,952 = 25,270 (4.6%)
• Chicago: 2,746,388 - 2,678,831 = 67,557 (2.5%)
• Baltimore: 585,708 - 625,755 = -40,047 (-6.4%)
• Cincinnati: 309,317 - 349,306 = -39,989 (-11.4%)
• Pittsburgh: 302,971 - 397,772 = -94,801 (-23.8%)
• Buffalo: 278,349 - 385,058 = -106,709 (-27.7%)
• Cleveland: 372,624 - 596,011 = -223,387 (-37.5%)
• St. Louis: 301,578 - 545,730 = -244,152 (-44.7%)
• Detroit: 639,111 - 1,315,011 = -675,900 (-51.4%)

[Steely Dan]

^ double check your math. I think you got buffalo wrong.

All of your other percentages closely approximate the percentage drop in households (the first purple column on the chart), but Buffalo is way outside that.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ double check your math. I think you got buffalo wrong.

All of your other percentages closely approximate the percentage drop in households (the first purple column on the chart), but Buffalo is way outside that.

Yeah, good catch. I put the wrong 1950 household size into the formula for Buffalo.

[Steely Dan]

^ so, more or less aligned with the % change in # of households since 1950.

Which backs up eschaton's point about # households being a more telling stat for urban decay/abandonment in the rust belt than straight population loss (though the two are obviously correlated).

It's why Detroit, in aggregate, feels significantly more decayed than Pittsburgh, despite the fact that their population drops aren't hugely different (-65% for Detroit vs. -55% for Pittsburgh).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ so, more or less aligned with the % change in # of households since 1950.

Which backs up eschaton's point about # households being a more telling stat for urban decay/abandonment in the rust belt than straight population loss (though the two are obviously correlated).

It's why Detroit, in aggregate, feels significantly more decayed than Pittsburgh, despite the fact that their population drops aren't hugely different (-65% for Detroit vs. -55% for Pittsburgh).

Yes, agree with this, although now I'm curious why household sizes in Pittsburgh dropped so much more than the other cities.

Percentage drop in household size between 1950 and 2020

• Pittsburgh: 41.2%
• St. Louis: 36.3%
• Cleveland: 34.8%
• Baltimore: 34.1%
• Buffalo: 33.6%
• Philadelphia: 30.7%
• Cincinnati: 30.7%
• Detroit: 28.9%
• Chicago: 26.0%
• Milwaukee: 25.5%

Lack of immigration?

[The North One]

Pittsburgh is smallish and went through utterly massive renewal/demolition projects for it's size. I would say that's why it seems like it has less blight.