Where Is The Rust Belt?

[JManc]

I would extend it further east into central New York towards Albany. It was so rusty it had frame rot.

[TWAK]

What happens with these huge areas (the steel plants)? Is there some type of environmental clean up and reuse? If they were ran by the government it could be a superfund site.
Certainly good for filming!

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by JManc

I would extend it further east into central New York towards Albany. It was so rusty it had frame rot.

Ture, but that's not a neat triangle to go along with my Holy Trinity analogy

Yeah, it's really more like a parallelogram from Pittsburgh to Albany then over to Buffalo across to Cleveland area then back down to Pittsburgh area.

Gotta pick up the Lackawanna Valley in PA, NY southern tier, and Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, etc. obviously.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

If you took an expansive definition of rust belt, wouldn't most of the deep south that is not experiencing sunbelt type growth also qualify?

In the mid-20th century a lot of industries like textiles, shoes, appliances, and furniture went to the South first before offshoring. I think much of this industry was rural or in towns or smaller cities therefore there are few good examples of struggling urban cities fitting the same category as Detroit or Cleveland.

I think here in Texas that around Waco and Bryan it's kind of post-industrial but this is not obvious and those cities are doing well for other reasons.

Like, the Brazos Valley was a civil war era cotton belt and tons of poor folk who were descendants of those farm workers, they would work for low wages. In the 20th century they had clothing and a shoe factory in Bryan and in Waco they had a big tire factory and railroad yard. Hearne had a porcelain toilet factory and steel fabrication and Marlin had a variety of things. All that stuff is mostly gone now. Marlin is a ghost town, Hearne is a run down speed trap of a town, etc.

Waco is pretty rough, especially north of the Brazos in Bellmead. It has modern industry and jobs now in industrial parks along I-35 but I still think culturally it's like the rust belt in the sense that a very large portion of the city is a street grid of little decaying houses in neighborhoods that are majority black or latino, and the local schools are terrible, there is crime issues, and the local government is meh.

Considering how commonly repeated this is around the US, I wonder if the term Rust Belt is even useful anymore. Genuine heavy industry like steel and automotive bottomed out and has come back. There are massive entirely modern steel mills all over the US, there are new auto plants, there are semiconductor fabs and pharmaceutical plants that are just as sprawling and complicated as an old fashioned industrial complex in Pittsburgh was. The people who work in these industries are an entirely different breed, they have associate's degrees or training certificates and make $60k, not like the temp labor that glued boots together for $2/hr in Macon or Florence or something back in 1970. What hasn't come back is the less 'exciting' industry that used to be absolutely everywhere producing consumer goods you'd have in your house.

I always thought the Rust Belt was not only geographic but psychological. That is places like Lufkin and Beaumont TX (East Texas cities) never really produced a stable middle class like Rust Belt cities in the mid 19th century to mid 20th century. Rust Belters give off the vibe of having been used to flying first class but now they have to fly economy.

You can see it on this forum from some of the Rust Belt posters, there's a sense of loss that you don't see from Southerners (unless you are talking about segregation).

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Right, hopefully Houston makes some movies to avoid being a future "Fumes belt" city in the next few decades.

I'm not sure if movies would save Houston, but I've been workshopping a Wire-esque HBO miniseries to be set in H-TOWN.

I do think Houston has been mindful of the plight of the rust belt and has been more proactive in diversifying but that doesn't guarantee anything.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by benp

Houston in the 1980s mimicked many of the losses and issues associated with the Rust Belt, following the collapse of US drilling when oil prices crashed. Bethlehem Steel, TESCO (Texas Electric Steel Co), Beaumont Well Works, Gray Tool, and many other companies involved in castings, forgings, rolling mills, manufacturing, etc closed down forever. Many parts of Houston held abandoned factories, subdivisions were abandoned, and population in Houston fell for several years in a row. Unlike Birmingham, Houston began a recovery by the early 1990s, as oil prices rose and Houston diversified its employment, and also began a greater role in O&G pipeline development and management, refining, shipping, and international finance and engineering as many companies merged and consolidated in Houston from other cities.

For those not familiar, most of the East and Southeast Houston area is very industrial with large concentrations of poor and working-class residents, and has many similarities to similar norther Rust Belt communities. These are not areas that visitors often see, or even know about, but make up at least half of the city.

Very true, Houston was pretty Detriot-esque in the mid 80s. Houston still has some bombed out inner areas to go along with the heavy industry.

Globalization really propelled Houston in the 90s and 00s. I think on-shoring could also work in Houston's favor but I think climate change is a pretty big what if for the Gulf Coast.

[JManc]

Houston will be fine. It's been diversifying for decades and remains a top destination for jobs and transplants. There will be some pain in the oil and gas industry in the coming years but it won't be like the rust belt in the 60's and 70's where their entire economy was dependent on one industry.

[benp]

Originally Posted by TWAK

What happens with these huge areas (the steel plants)? Is there some type of environmental clean up and reuse? If they were ran by the government it could be a superfund site.
Certainly good for filming!

In Buffalo most of the plants were vacated and torn down in the 1980s, and much of the land remained vacant and polluted for decades.

The largest (Bethlehem Steel) has gone through major remediation and reuse. The worst areas are now used as wind and solar farms (Steel Winds and Steel Sun) along the lakeshore as not much else could be done with the land. Many of the former warehousing and storage buildings that were not production facilities are now in use by smaller companies. Several hundred polluted acres have been remediated and are now filled with "cleaner" industries and some office parks, a sugar refinery and distribution center, bulk products shipping ports, a soon to be a marijuana processing center, several big box warehouses/distribution centers, and also added greenway, parks, and bike trails. There are still hundreds of unmediated acres left to go in Lackawanna, with Erie County recently taking the lead in redevelopment, while most of the land on the Buffalo side is now cleaned up for public use including the creation of Buffalo Harbor State Park. A business park was created on the site of the former Hanna Furnace mill and receiving port in the late 1990s, and just this year the last available site has been sold.

The next largest, former Republic Steel, has mostly been remediated and became the Riverbend complex, housing Tesla Gigafactory 2, originally to be a solar panel manufacturer (and was early occupied by Panasonic for awhile), but now includes other Tesla components. There are still other areas nearby pending remediation and use, one section planned to be soudstages for Buffalo Studios, although construction has not begun. The Buffalo River, polluted for decades by Republic, Buffalo Color, and Mobil Refinery has undergone extensive cleanup and shoreline restoration, and has been becoming a residential and recreational area in the last decade.

Other former steel plant areas like Pratt&Letchworh and Acme Steel in the Black Rock neighborhood remain vacant land or storage, which I believe has been tied up for decades by the Ambassador Bridge Company that wanted to build a private truck bridge to Canada, and has been sitting on the land. Some neighboring areas have been sold and remediated, and Buffalo State College also recently purchased some of the land for future use. Tonawanda Coke land has been in the process of remediation, although unclear what the future use would be.

Today there are few signs of the former steel mills when visiting the area.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by JManc

Houston will be fine. It's been diversifying for decades and remains a top destination for jobs and transplants. There will be some pain in the oil and gas industry in the coming years but it won't be like the rust belt in the 60's and 70's where their entire economy was dependent on one industry.

I'm more concerned about hurricanes and flooding than the O&G industry disappearing.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by benp

In Buffalo most of the plants were vacated and torn down in the 1980s, and much of the land remained vacant and polluted for decades.

The largest (Bethlehem Steel) has gone through major remediation and reuse. The worst areas are now used as wind and solar farms (Steel Winds and Steel Sun) along the lakeshore as not much else could be done with the land. Many of the former warehousing and storage buildings that were not production facilities are now in use by smaller companies. Several hundred polluted acres have been remediated and are now filled with "cleaner" industries and some office parks, a sugar refinery and distribution center, bulk products shipping ports, a soon to be a marijuana processing center, several big box warehouses/distribution centers, and also added greenway, parks, and bike trails. There are still hundreds of unmediated acres left to go in Lackawanna, with Erie County recently taking the lead in redevelopment, while most of the land on the Buffalo side is now cleaned up for public use including the creation of Buffalo Harbor State Park. A business park was created on the site of the former Hanna Furnace mill and receiving port in the late 1990s, and just this year the last available site has been sold.

The next largest, former Republic Steel, has mostly been remediated and became the Riverbend complex, housing Tesla Gigafactory 2, originally to be a solar panel manufacturer (and was early occupied by Panasonic for awhile), but now includes other Tesla components. There are still other areas nearby pending remediation and use, one section planned to be soudstages for Buffalo Studios, although construction has not begun. The Buffalo River, polluted for decades by Republic, Buffalo Color, and Mobil Refinery has undergone extensive cleanup and shoreline restoration, and has been becoming a residential and recreational area in the last decade.

Other former steel plant areas like Pratt&Letchworh and Acme Steel in the Black Rock neighborhood remain vacant land or storage, which I believe has been tied up for decades by the Ambassador Bridge Company that wanted to build a private truck bridge to Canada, and has been sitting on the land. Some neighboring areas have been sold and remediated, and Buffalo State College also recently purchased some of the land for future use. Tonawanda Coke land has been in the process of remediation, although unclear what the future use would be.

Today there are few signs of the former steel mills when visiting the area.

I have noticed the amount of these large plants on the waterfront along the lakes and rivers, so it's good that authorities or companies have been able to clean them up. Reclaiming/reuse/ect is much better than just leaving it especially if it's inside some of these cities. I don't know if a place like Buffalo or other Rust Belt cities are in dire need of land, but CA cities are and these spots are getting redeveloped in a similar way. The sheer size of these complexes is amazing, like they could be their own city (and sometimes they were) especially the steel plants that are monstrous. It seems most large cities in the US that are on the coast, lake, or on a river have this issue with unused former industrial areas.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Buffalo-Cleveland-Pittsburgh -- the Rust Belt Trinity.

The region contained within this rough triangle is likely the "rustiest" part of the country overall. Eastern OH, Northern WV, Western PA, and Western NY. The sheer amount and diversity of heavy manufacturing that occurred in the this area and the subsequent decades of malignant decay is rather astounding.

the calumet river/NW indiana industrial zone can go toe to toe with any other region when it comes to rusty heavy industrial heft.

over 1/4 of all steel made in the US is made there (including over half of the nation's raw steel).

see this post: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9725760&postcount=764

Originally Posted by TWAK

What happens with these huge areas (the steel plants)?

the 3 big integrated steel mills in NW indiana are still going strong making steel (for now anyway), pics in the link above.

there was a 4th massive lakefront integrated steel mill in chicagoland, US Steel's Southworks, on the far southside of chicago at the mouth of the calumet river, but it closed for good back in the '92, and though there have been various redevelopment plans floated for the prime 500 acre lakefront site over the decades, the land still sits mostly fallow 3 decades later.

google maps aerial view of the now vacant US Steel Southworks site:: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7432599,-87.493122,3312a,35y,256.11h,46.55t/data=!3m1!1e3


can you imagine 500 acres of waterfront land just sitting empty for 3+ decades in any major coastal city?

don't let anybody fool you, chicago IS rustbelt.

it just perhaps "hides" it a bit better with its highly diversified economy compared to some other places.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the calumet river/NW indiana industrial zone can go toe to toe with any other region when it comes to rusty heavy industrial heft.

Yeah, I'm sure it can. I don't know that area well, but certainly understand that it is major rustbelt.

I wasn't trying to say that there aren't places just as "rusty" as the area I was talking about... that is, the large swath from upstate NY over to NE Ohio down to SW PA/N WV and back up through PA. I realize that Calumet river/NW Indiana (and other areas) would fit right in.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the 3 big integrated steel mills in NW indiana are still going strong making steel (for now anyway), pics in the link above.

there was a 4th massive lakefront integrated steel mill in chicagoland, US Steel's Southworks, on the far southside of chicago at the mouth of the calumet river, but it closed for good back in the '92, and though there have been various redevelopment plans floated for the prime 500 acre lakefront site over the decades, the land still sits mostly fallow 3 decades later.

google maps aerial view of the now vacant US Steel Southworks site:: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7432599,-87.493122,3312a,35y,256.11h,46.55t/data=!3m1!1e3

At least the city was able to make some of it a park and that's not really a bad way to go for the entire plot of land, but there should be some form of cleanup given its previous use. Did the city always have this or was it purchased/ect from the owners?

can you imagine 500 acres of waterfront land just sitting empty for 3+ decades in any major coastal city?

don't let anybody fool you, chicago IS rustbelt.

it just perhaps "hides" it a bit better with its highly diversified economy compared to some other places.

Depends on what it is at least for CA, which could be either a former military base, oil infrastructure, or disused ports. Off the top of my head Sacramento is redeveloping former railyards and Napa is redeveloping the old port.

[edale]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Ture, but that's not a neat triangle to go along with my Holy Trinity analogy

Yeah, it's really more like a parallelogram from Pittsburgh to Albany then over to Buffalo across to Cleveland area then back down to Pittsburgh area.

Gotta pick up the Lackawanna Valley in PA, NY southern tier, and Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, etc. obviously.

Toledo is pretty much classic Rust Belt, as is Detroit and much of SE Michigan. I'd say the rectangle formed by Buffalo, just south of Pittsburgh, Toledo, and Flint is the heart of the Rust Belt. NW Indiana has a strong case for inclusion, too, but the greater area it exists in isn't very 'rusty'-- more standard Indiana/Illinois ag country to the south, southwest, and east, and Chicago to the North. Basically everything within the rectangle I described could be described as classic rust belt, though. Lorain, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Wheeling...all could compete for the capital of the Rust Belt. On the state level, Ohio is probably ground zero for the rust belt...the heart of it all indeed .

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by edale

Toledo is pretty much classic Rust Belt, as is Detroit and much of SE Michigan. I'd say the rectangle formed by Buffalo, just south of Pittsburgh, Toledo, and Flint is the heart of the Rust Belt. NW Indiana has a strong case for inclusion, too, but the greater area it exists in isn't very 'rusty'-- more standard Indiana/Illinois ag country to the south, southwest, and east, and Chicago to the North. Basically everything within the rectangle I described could be described as classic rust belt, though. Lorain, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Wheeling...all could compete for the capital of the Rust Belt. On the state level, Ohio is probably ground zero for the rust belt...the heart of it all indeed .

True... and it's probably even more of a blob.

I'd have a hard time leaving a lot upstate NY out of it and NE PA. Maybe they're more like rusty satellites now. Syracuse, Utica, into Schenectady and Scranton-WB... pretty rough.

As for capital of the Rust Belt... jeez, not really a title anyone wants... I kinda gotta go with Youngstown... the whole Mahoning and Shenango Valley region really... Warren/Youngstown/New Castle/Sharon/Farrell. That whole area has always given me the creeps.

[iheartthed]

Northeast Ohio is definitely a different type of Rust Belt than Southeast Michigan.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by TWAK

At least the city was able to make some of it a park and that's not really a bad way to go for the entire plot of land, but there should be some form of cleanup given its previous use. Did the city always have this or was it purchased/ect from the owners?

.

The land is still privately owned by U.S. Steel, and it’s been for sale since like 1993, but no buyers because of the cleanup required.

Chicago requires park space by the waterfront, so that’s why there’s some public access.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

I'm more concerned about hurricanes and flooding than the O&G industry disappearing.

There were serious discussions of literally abandoning New Orleans back when Katrina hit. That obviously never happened and that is a much weaker city economically. By the time Houston does slide into the gulf, I and most others won't be around to care. Hurricanes are a fact of life for that region and flooding can be mitigated with better land use. My neighborhood probably won't flood like it did during Harvey in my lifetime.

[edale]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Northeast Ohio is definitely a different type of Rust Belt than Southeast Michigan.

How so? They seem pretty similar to me, from the auto industry focus, to the regional population trends, to the visual presence of heavy industry. Cleveland has its 'Industrial Valley', Detroit has Zug Island. Northern Ohio is an extension of Detroit in many ways. Detroit assembled the cars, but Toledo made the glass for the windows, Akron made the tires, Cleveland and Youngstown made the steel for the car bodies...

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

I'm more concerned about hurricanes and flooding than the O&G industry disappearing.

Do the Woodlands, Spring, Conroe and suburbs farther north or west flood?