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Originally Posted by Shawn
I’d also say nothing in Mass is Rust Belt.
All of the Mass mill cities like Lawrence and Lowell had gone through a form of deindustrialization decades prior to the Rust Belt-defining loss of manufacturing bases experienced by classic Rust Belt cities in the 60s and 70s. These places had either already transitioned into eds and meds or had already fully embraced their newish roles as Boston bedtowns right when outlooks starting going south for the Clevelands and Detroits.
That doesn’t mean the 70s and 80s were kind to Lowell or Lawrence (far from it), but that also doesn’t necessarily equal a Rust Belt experience.
The closest thing to a Rust Belt town in New England is Pittsfield: GE once employed 13,000 in the city, and that’s down to 700. But Pittsfield is also in the middle of the Berkshires, so plenty of wealthy New Yorkers and Bostonians to overcharge for everything basically every weekend of the year.
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I think Boston would have qualified as Rust Belt in the 1980s. The population declines in Boston from 1950 - 1990 look very Detroit-ish. By 1980, Boston was 30% off of its peak in 1950, and Detroit was 35% off of it.
Boston has obviously pulled out of it since then and not looked back. But they were in similar buckets until the 1980s, which is when the term was created.