Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by goat314

Detroit and St. Louis missing the 70s and 80s immigration wave really hurt those central cities. No doubt we'd be looking at a St. Louis with about 550k and a Detroit with at least a million today, if they had gotten a solid Latino and/or Asian influx in the last 50 years. Probably would have considerably bigger metros as well.

if, like chicago or philly, detroit, st. louis and cleveland had only had to suffer population loss induced by household size decrease instead of the considerable loss of actual households themselves, their city proper populations would look like this today:



population using the 1950 # of households multiplied by 2020 household size:

detroit: 1,254,019

cleveland: 568,105

st. louis: 512,110

pittsburgh: 380,614

buffalo: 366,219

cincinnati: 331,202


if those population figures above for detroit, cleveland, and st. louis were real, all of them would have much more intact functional urbanism today. the substantial declines in the number of households over the past 7 decades has knee-capped them all quite severely, more so than the household size decrease has (which is a societal shift that has effected every city from coast to coast).

i mean, imagine a world where detroit didn't lose a single household since 1950, and today was only dealing with the ramifications of household size decrease as a city of 1.25M people.

it'd be a very different city.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I'm unconvinced. let's see the math.

I don't really care whether you're personally convinced or not lol. It's basic knowledge if you know a damn thing about the Detroit area and I don't need to sit here and spend hours meticulously calculating BS. Not worth my time.

There is nearly a million people in southern Oakland County alone, right there bordering 8 mile. Chicago proper is about double the size of Detroit city limits. If Detroit limits were that huge and included the Pointes, inner OC and Dearborn, etc. it would easily have similar or better percentages than Chicago. You can play with the math.

additionally, municipal limits may be arbitrary, but they most certainly do have real world impacts.

I never said they don't have real world impacts but they're horrible for making direct comparisons and drawing the sweeping conclusions you're casually trying to make here. This city proper game has been debunked over and over again, yet you guys still play it. The reality on the ground is these cities are all more or less in the same boat with urban disinvestment, stop splitting hairs and cherry picking extrapolated data.

sure, but that's kinda like giving a $20 bill to a homeless person and saying they now have one of the fastest growing net-worth's in the city.

when your base is near zero.....

Actually I think I got that wrong, it might of been by raw number. I can't find the original chart source.

Detroit proper's white population has grown over 22,000+ within 2010-2020, that's almost as much as Atlanta's growth in white residents. That's nothing to sneeze at and especially when that number is definitely under counted. And you can expect it to accelerate this decade.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

if, like chicago or philly, detroit, st. louis and cleveland had only had to suffer population loss induced by household size decrease instead of the considerable loss of actual households themselves, their city proper populations would look like this today:



population using the 1950 # of households multiplied by 2020 household size:

detroit: 1,254,019

cleveland: 568,105

st. louis: 512,110

pittsburgh: 380,614

buffalo: 366,219

cincinnati: 331,202


if those population figures above for detroit, cleveland, and st. louis were real, all of them would have much more intact functional urbanism today. the substantial declines in the number of households over the past 7 decades has knee-capped them all quite severely, more so than the household size decrease has (which is a societal shift that has effected every city from coast to coast).

i mean, imagine a world where detroit didn't lose a single household since 1950, and today was only dealing with the ramifications of household size decrease as a city of 1.25M people.

it'd be a very different city.

Interesting scenario, Steely.

Buffalo's tiny 40sq miles would be jumping with ~90 thousand extra residents and the East side wouldn't have urban prairie.

Detroit would still be very impressive.

Cincinnati is the only city close to that imagined population figure!

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

The reality on the ground is these cities are all more or less in the same boat with urban disinvestment

and to anyone with functioning eyeballs who's actually been to chicago and detroit, the reality on the ground is not the same.

from 1950 - 2020, chicago has actually seen a small increase in its # of households.

from 1950 - 2020, the # of households in detroit has cratered with a decrease of ~50%.

that 50% decrease in households is real and extremely substantial abandonment, not just population decline induced by the reduction in average household sizes over the last 70 years.


on balance, the city of chicago is simply far more densely populated and thus far more urban these days than the city of detroit is.

the gap wasn't nearly as large 7 decades ago as it is today.

Originally Posted by The North One

Detroit proper's white population has grown over 22,000+ within 2010-2020,

from census 2010 to census 2020, detroit city proper gained 5,166 NH-white people.

over that same decade the city of chicago gained 8,905 NH-white people.


in both cases, it's a $20 bill to the homeless guy.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by edale

Lol, classic. If we just expand the already large municipal boundaries to be even larger, Detroit would be more populous/wealthier/whatever. If the municipal boundaries were larger, those areas would have almost certainly been affected by the same white flights and abandonment that the rest of the city suffered.

Go write a Detroit fan-fiction blog dude, start a tumblr, write a 5 page thesis. Maybe somebody who cares will see it. You're obsessed with a fantasy narrative, a mythology genre. Gives you a little dopamine hit writing these paragraphs, clearly lol. You can sit here and propagate Detroit exceptionalism. The reality on the ground in this country will always contradict it though. Too bad.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and to anyone who's actually been to chicago and detroit, the reality on the ground is not the same.

lol dude. I have seen the reality on the ground in Chicago. I have actually BEEN to those places, seen Chicago's worst with my own two eyes, seen the worst of Detroit up front too. Have you? Don't sit here and tell me what people who have actually been to those places know about the reality.

You're right, Chicago's reality is worse actually, because the problem is much bigger. About two times as bad.

You think Chicago's reality is better because the poverty, segregation, crime and blight has a higher density in certain neighborhoods? That is quite a take...

from census 2010 - census 2020, detroit city proper gained 5,166 NH-white people.

over that same decade the city of chicago gained 8,905 NH-white people.

So despite Chicago being about 4 times the size in population than Detroit proper. It couldn't even get double the growth in NH-White people. Is this supposed to contradict my point about Detroit's fast growing white population?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

You think Chicago's reality is better because the poverty, segregation, crime and blight has a higher density in certain neighborhoods?

in reality, the areas of chicago hit with the highest levels of violence and blight are some of the lowest density parts of the inhabited city.

it's a big part of why so many people move away from them and why those areas get caught in the downward spiral.

it's just that on balance, chicago has so many more relatively stable working, middle, and upper class areas compared to the city of detroit.

Originally Posted by The North One

So despite Chicago being about 4 times the size in population than Detroit proper. It couldn't even get double the growth in NH-White people. Is this supposed to contradict my point about Detroit's fast growing white population?

no, i wasn't trying to contradict anything, just correcting the incorrect data you posted.

and again, the analogy to giving the homeless dude $20 is apt.

when your baseline is near zero......




in any event, NH-white people were definitely not the drivers of chicago's modest growth last decade:


city of chicago 2010 - 2020:

NH black: -84,735
NH white: +8,905
NH asian: +44,926
NH other: +41,038
hispanic: +40,656

total: +50,790

(if you take away the black flight number, the others add up to a +135,525)




city of detroit 2010 - 2020:

NH black: -93,361
NH white: +5,166
NH asian: +2,678
NH other: +8,261
hispanic: +2,590

total: -74,666

(if you take away the black flight number, the others add up to a +21,790)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^^ i'd still like to see the numbers if you can find them.

that said, one of the things that's nice about that chart showing the relative population declines of the major rustbelt cities is that it's comparing pretty damn static geographies from 1950 to 2020 (with the exception of milwaukee), so we're getting a pretty good apples to apples view of things instead of cherry-picking data.

I don't remember which thread I posted it in, but it was easy enough to quickly redo. I think the 1.6 million number I had in my mind included Windsor. Anyway, without Windsor the 2010 population of the Detroit + the communities circling it was 1,379,226 vs 2,263,858 in 1950. Excluding Detroit, the 2010 population 665,449 vs 414,280 in 1950. Thus:

Detroit growth: -61%
Detroit + inner-ring growth: -40%
Inner-ring growth alone: +60%

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i still maintain that the most unique feature of the city of detroit's decline was not uncontrolled sprawl (that story was told in LOTS of cities), it was the completeness to which white flight was carried out, such that by 2010 the city's NH-white population had declined by over 96% from the 1950 peak.

like sprawl, LOTS of other major cities had white flight too, but nowhere did the phenomenon occur to such an extreme degree of near total completeness along central city vs. suburban municipal lines as it did in metro detroit.

White flight and sprawl were basically the same thing. White people weren't fleeing Detroit to live in communities that already existed.

[edale]

Originally Posted by The North One

Go write a Detroit fan-fiction blog dude, start a tumblr, write a 5 page thesis. Maybe somebody who cares will see it. You're obsessed with a fantasy narrative, a mythology genre. Gives you a little dopamine hit writing these paragraphs, clearly lol. You can sit here and propagate Detroit exceptionalism. The reality on the ground in this country will always contradict it though. Too bad.

Must feel good to deny reality. No other major American city has anywhere close to the level of urban prairie and complete abandonment that Detroit has. It's not just population decline, but also a huge reduction in structural density resulting in essentially rural scenes like this found all across the city:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3403236,...QzWPpzsFeqb9NgaYvBt6g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3650478,...o0r8vUUfFe0PaTZGBTO3Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

yes, there are urban prairies in parts of many cities across the US. The North side of STL, East side of Cleveland, maybe some parts of the South Side of Chicago have urban prairies, but nothing to the extent of Detroit. It's hard to even find a single urban, intact commercial district outside of the Downtown/Midtown area of Detroit. Detroit exceptionalism indeed.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by The North One

Detroit proper's white population has grown over 22,000+ within 2010-2020, that's almost as much as Atlanta's growth in white residents. That's nothing to sneeze at and especially when that number is definitely under counted. And you can expect it to accelerate this decade.

Detroit has over 100k on Atlanta and urban areas everywhere are being gentrified by upper middle class white people. Even my rundown hometown in NY is seeing a sharp rise. Detroit was also ripe for gentrification because it has good bones and was/is dirt cheap. Plus many saw that the worst was behind them (as with most RB cities) and the region still had a solid economy overall.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the point about chicago greatly benefitting from a giant tsunami of latino immigration (and to a lesser extent asian immigration) cannot be stressed enough.

so many formerly white ethnic neighborhoods across chicago were saved by being "back-filled" by those immigrants as the ethnic whites bolted for the burbs/started dying off, a process that's still continuing on the SW side and NW side as gentrification in the core is pushing latinos further out into bungalow belt neighborhoods that are simultaneously becoming less white as the older white ethnics are moving out/dying off.

Very True, especially as you go southwest and northwest. Even a few working class neighborhoods and suburbs, some of which were hostile to African-Americans, were back-filled by Latinos. Cicero was notorious for being hostile to African Americans but is now nearly 90% Latino per Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero,_Illinois

[Wigs]

The North One,
Dude, why are you so butthurt.

Detroit went bankrupt and at one point the city State actually considered the insane idea of selling off items from DIA art collection to pay off debts. That was 2013.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/31/us/michigan-detroit-art

This is recent memory for us on SSP.

You can't sugar coat the history, the fact that the city did empty out for the bulk of 7 decades and lost the vast majority of its White population, leaving remaining mostly Black residents with high tax bills to support the infrastructure of a city of 139 square miles that went from ~1.85M to now ~650k.
Hell, Buffalo went from 580k to ~280k currently! (but in a much smaller footprint)

I'm glad Detroit is on the rebound and doing great with untold Billions of reinvestment in 2022.

You took at jab at Buffalo saying it's revitalization was a "paint job" of one skyscraper.
When in reality it's one project among Billions of reinvestment in the medical campus and downtown Buffalo.

Buffalo proper gained 17,000 residents 2010-2020 and among the most visible transformations downtown is the $150M revitalization of the former 1.2M sq ft HSBC tower into mixed use, with M&T Bank itself investing an additional $58M into its floors with a new tech hub creating 1,000 new jobs.
M&T Bank grew from $150B in assets to now the nation's 16th largest bank, with $203B in assets with the recent purchase of People's United Bank, giving it a strong foothold in mid-Atlantic region.

This investment by M&T has created the clustering of most of Buffalo's small tech community in the tower along with tech incubator 43 North.
A nice $208,000,000 "paint job" indeed

I've always liked Detroit and the fact it's right across from Windsor not too far from me in southern Ontario. I want ALL Rust Belt cities to revitalize and be growing again

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Wigs

The North One,
Dude, why are you so butthurt.

Detroit went bankrupt and at one point the city actually considered the insane idea of selling off items from DIA art collection to pay off debts. That was 2013.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/31/us/michigan-detroit-art

This is recent memory for us on SSP.

No, the city did not consider doing that. The state of Michigan considered forcing the city to do it. That's a HUGE difference. The emergency manager who entertained the idea was an appointee of the governor and didn't even live in the state of Michigan. The state senator pushing the bill was from Monroe County.

Also, to be totally accurate, the state of Michigan forced Detroit to declare bankruptcy. The state of Michigan could have also chosen to just cover Detroit's debts.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No, the city did not consider doing that. The state of Michigan considered forcing the city to do it. That's a HUGE difference. The emergency manager who entertained the idea was an appointee of the governor and didn't even live in the state of Michigan. The state senator pushing the bill was from Monroe County.

Also, to be totally accurate, the state of Michigan forced Detroit to declare bankruptcy. The state of Michigan could have also chosen to just cover Detroit's debts.

I stand corrected

That's sociopathic!
What kind of State is Michigan to just say "f*** Detroit, let them suffer" when Detroit is the entire reason Michigan was one of the biggest industrial powerhouses that basically helped build America into the juggernaut it is today.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

Chicago proper is about double the size of Detroit city limits.

chicago is actually closer to 1.5x larger (1.63x to be exact) than it is to 2x the size of detroit in terms of land area (227 sq. miles vs. 139 sq. miles), but since one of your big hang-ups here seems to be the 227 sq. mile size of chicago's city limits, consider this:


here's a map of chicago's core community areas that total up to 135 sq. miles, organized in a neat and clean shape (no cherry picking here) fully centered on downtown that approximates the size/shape of the city of detroit centered around its downtown.




(aside: i never really appreciated how getting rid of all the community areas west of cicero ave. and those either mostly or entirely south of 95th really "cleans up" chicago's outline, and how conveniently what's left aligns with the area of detroit)


in 1950, those community areas highlighted above had a population of 2,992,707 people.

in 2020, those same CA's had a population 2,072,413 people, for a drop of 920,294 people (-30.8%).


so to compare:

- city of detroit: 139 sq. miles | 1950 pop. 1,849,568 | 2020 pop. 639,111 | change: -1,220,457 (-65.4%)

- "core chicago": 135 sq. miles | 1950 pop. 2,992,707 | 2020 pop. 2,072,413 | change: -920,294 (-30.8%)


the fact of the matter is that no matter how you slice the data, the city of detroit has simply lost a FAR greater share of its people than chicago has.

and in like-for-like land areas, chicago had A lot more people (+61.8%) and much greater population density (22.2K ppsm vs. 13.3K ppsm) to begin with back in 1950.

it started out with more people and lost a lot fewer of them, proportionally; that is why the "reality on the ground" is quite different (and blatantly obvious to most people) between the two cities today.

additionally, even after decades of population loss in the windy city, here in 2020, that 135 sq. mile "core chicago" still has more total people in it than detroit had in its 139 sq. mile city at its all-time 1950 peak!



if detroit's city proper had only declined by -30.8% like core chicago did, then today the motor city would have a population of 1,279,901.

how could anyone argue that detroit wouldn't be a MUCH healthier and more vibrant city today with nearly 1.3M people as opposed to its current state with 640K?

[edale]

Originally Posted by Wigs

The North One,
Dude, why are you so butthurt.


I've always liked Detroit and the fact it's right across from Windsor not too far from me in southern Ontario. I want ALL Rust Belt cities to revitalize and be growing again

Don't worry about TNO. He's an ultra defensive Detroit booster who takes any mention of Detroit as a personal affront. I, too, really like Detroit and would love nothing more than to see it succeed. I have a lot of family in SE Michigan, and have always enjoyed visiting the area. I love watching the Hudson tower rise, seeing the progress on the Michigan Central Station rehab, the revitalization of Downtown and Midtown and the whole Woodward corridor linking the two, etc. I'm not some Detroit hater, even if TNO loves to label me as such.

I want to see all Rust Belt cities make a comeback, too. I'm from Cincinnati, and I'm fully aware of its limitations and deficiencies, even though it's made tremendous strides in the last 20 years. I've been living in LA for a while now, and I'm similarly aware of its deficiencies and the myriad ways it could improve. You can point out issues and give an honest assessment while still rooting for and loving a place.

To shift attention off Detroit a bit, though, I wonder if most people here view Cincinnati as Rust Belt. It was historically less industrial than Detroit, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, but manufacturing has always been a large portion of its economy. There is heavy industry, especially around the huge old Procter and Gamble Ivorydale factory complex, but it largely lacks the big refineries and mills that I associate with the main Rust Belt cities. Cincinnati certainly followed a similar trajectory as the other RB cities when it came to population loss in the second half of the 20th century. However it never got the huge booms like Cleveland or Detroit experienced--it's biggest growth period was in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but it also didn't fall quite as hard either. Like in so many other areas, Cincinnati seems like a border city. One foot in the Rust Belt, one foot...not? It's definitely not sunbelt or 'new midwest' ala Indy or Cbus, but doesn't feel totally at home with Detroit or Cleveland. It even feels quite a bit different from Pittsburgh, despite the somewhat similar river/topography feel.

[Wigs]

I've never been to Cincinnati (just driven by on a HS class trip to Kentucky's caves) admiring and pointing out the Roebling bridge and the Carew Tower. I've "lusted it from afar" ever since my Dad visited on a work trip and brought home a promotional guide that was hardcover when I was a kid.

I'm so glad to see that like Buffalo, Cincinnati is gaining population again.

To me, Cincy is like you said one foot rust Belt, one foot other. It never declined as bad as the majority of rust belt. Probably helped by the fact it's home to many well known corporations.

I really want to attend a Reds game, take the street car, visit OTR, admire the impressive housing stock, take photos of all the landmarks.

[Wigs]

This video better fits the discussion in this thread

Doug Jemal of DC based Douglas Development fell in love with Buffalo and has now taken on most of the city's "white elephant" projects. an awful lot at once!

• Video Link

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by eschaton

IMHO the core of the Rust Belt though is basically Buffalo-Cleveland-Detroit. All these cities share similarities when it comes to built form, metro demographics, culture, accent, close proximity, etc. Lots of other cities can be included, but they all have their own special elements which make them less quintessentially rust belt.

I understand the hesitancy to include Chicago since its economy is and was pretty diversified, but the SE Side of Chicago and NW Indiana were one of the largest steel producing regions in the world for a long time. And if there's another city that could be compared to Detroit (on 1/10th the scale and not experiencing its current renaissance), it would be Gary, IN. Gary is quintessentially rust belt and so is the SE Side of Chicago.

Gary Population Decline
1960 | 178,320
2020 | 69,093

-61.3%

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by edale

To shift attention off Detroit a bit, though, I wonder if most people here view Cincinnati as Rust Belt. It was historically less industrial than Detroit, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, but manufacturing has always been a large portion of its economy. There is heavy industry, especially around the huge old Procter and Gamble Ivorydale factory complex, but it largely lacks the big refineries and mills that I associate with the main Rust Belt cities. Cincinnati certainly followed a similar trajectory as the other RB cities when it came to population loss in the second half of the 20th century. However it never got the huge booms like Cleveland or Detroit experienced--it's biggest growth period was in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but it also didn't fall quite as hard either. Like in so many other areas, Cincinnati seems like a border city. One foot in the Rust Belt, one foot...not? It's definitely not sunbelt or 'new midwest' ala Indy or Cbus, but doesn't feel totally at home with Detroit or Cleveland. It even feels quite a bit different from Pittsburgh, despite the somewhat similar river/topography feel.

I hesitate to call it Rust Belt, but the Appalachian influences always made it feel kind of economically suppressed (not necessarily depressed). If not industry, then demographics? I'm thinking Lower Price Hill, Over-the-Rhine before 3CDC, Eastern Avenue/Kellogg Avenue along the Ohio River heading out toward New Richmond.

I also grew up in Newtown and my extended family that lived in Clermont and Clinton counties (yayhoos/hilljacks) might partly explain the connection? Other members of the extended family were railroad workers in Silver Grove and the last few times I've been through there it was not looking like it was in great shape.