Where Is The Rust Belt?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by DCReid

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

Anyplace within the vicinity of a bayou or river can and will flood. There's a waterway that runs through The Woodlands. Humble and Kingwood flooded bad a few years ago.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

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.

Honestly not a bad policy given how ugly waterfronts have been, especially with industrial use. There's obviously a need with navigable waterways, but still...it's ugly and usually an environmental nightmare.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Honestly not a bad policy given how ugly waterfronts have been, especially with industrial use. There's obviously a need with navigable waterways, but still...it's ugly and usually an environmental nightmare.

Most industry in Chicago was historically inland along the river. The steel plants were an aberration on the lake.

But Steelworks has a rather weird vibe nowadays.

It’s looks like a bunch of ancient ruins in a semi public, semi private space in a landscape that is gradually returning to prairie and forest.

In a few more decades, the area is going to more resemble a nature reserve than a vacant lot, so redevelopment would get more complicated as time goes by.

[Steely Dan]

^ awesome pics of the old Southworks site, thanks for posting!

You're totally right, just doing nothing at all for 3 decades has let it develop into a pretty cool and unintentional nature reclamation project.

[SIGSEGV]

When the Bears move to AA, maybe the Steelers can move to the Steelworks .

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

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...

I was thinking more about Youngstown than Cleveland, but even Cleveland as a metro has performed considerably worse than metro Detroit when you measure performance by population growth -- Cleveland is closer to Pittsburgh and Buffalo in population growth performance. The Cleveland metro is off its regional population peak by 10%. Pittsburgh and Buffalo are each off their peak by 14%. And Youngstown is 18% off its peak. By comparison, Detroit is 2% off its peak.

Considering the above, I think the assessment of Rust Belt epicenter being somewhere centered around Youngstown is accurate if we're using the term to describe regional economic collapse and population decline. I think there are a large group of American metros that get lumped into Rust Belt when their struggles with repurposing land are really just because of inadequate policy.

And don't get me wrong, Detroit does have some classic Rust Belt characteristics, and it is undoubtedly the Rust Beltiest of any big metro, but it's definitely not the prototype of Rust Belt. I think an honest assessment as to why the city of Detroit has had a large population percentage decline than the cities of Pittsburgh or Buffalo are going to point more towards bad policy and planning in the Detroit area than regional economic collapse.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I was thinking more about Youngstown than Cleveland, but even Cleveland as a metro has performed considerably worse than metro Detroit when you measure performance by population growth -- Cleveland is closer to Pittsburgh and Buffalo in population growth performance. The Cleveland metro is off its regional population peak by 10%. Pittsburgh and Buffalo are each off their peak by 14%. And Youngstown is 18% off its peak. By comparison, Detroit is 2% off its peak.

Considering the above, I think the assessment of Rust Belt epicenter being somewhere centered around Youngstown is accurate if we're using the term to describe regional economic collapse and population decline. I think there are a large group of American metros that get lumped into Rust Belt when their struggles with repurposing land are really just because of inadequate policy.

And don't get me wrong, Detroit does have some classic Rust Belt characteristics, and it is undoubtedly the Rust Beltiest of any big metro, but it's definitely not the prototype of Rust Belt. I think an honest assessment as to why the city of Detroit has had a large population percentage decline than the cities of Pittsburgh or Buffalo are going to point more towards bad policy and planning in the Detroit area than regional economic collapse.

If you consider Cleveland-Akron (a very sensible definition), Cleveland metro area population curve is way more similar to Detroit than it's to Pittsburgh and Buffalo that only stopped their decline in the 2020 Census.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

If you consider Cleveland-Akron (a very sensible definition), Cleveland metro area population curve is way more similar to Detroit than it's to Pittsburgh and Buffalo that only stopped their decline in the 2020 Census.

It's still off by 7%. Also, the Detroit CSA has never had a population decline, so I think the point still remains.

[pj3000]

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

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Yuri

If you consider Cleveland-Akron (a very sensible definition), Cleveland metro area population curve is way more similar to Detroit than it's to Pittsburgh and Buffalo that only stopped their decline in the 2020 Census.

But the thing is, "Cleveland-Akron" only really came into existence due to urban decline. It was never a thing until people started to flee Cleveland, mainly, to the south and connect with Akron's comparatively lesser flight to the north.

That is, you can't really hide the decline within the "metro area" because the metro area only became a metro area because of the decline.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It's still off by 7%. Also, the Detroit CSA has never had a population decline, so I think the point still remains.

The Detroit CSA (5,814 sq mi (15,060 km2)) is 2.5 times the land area of the Metro Toronto, 2.1 times the entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
That's absolutely massive! It's like the GTA+Hamilton+Niagara Region extending across the Canada-USA border to +Erie County(Buffalo, NY)+Genesee (Batavia, NY) +Monroe County(Rochester, NY) lol

A ridiculous size

May I present TorhamBufchesteriagara, a fictional Megalopolis of ~9.6M that is approximately the land area of the 9-county 5.4M Detroit CSA area

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It's still off by 7%. Also, the Detroit CSA has never had a population decline, so I think the point still remains.

If I’m not mistaken, Detroit CSA peak is in 2000. And it declined between 1970-1990. Cleveland-Akron, as Detroit, had ups and downs, whereas Pittsburgh and Buffalo declined continuously from 1960 and 1970 to 2010.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by pj3000

But the thing is, "Cleveland-Akron" only really came into existence due to urban decline. It was never a thing until people started to flee Cleveland, mainly, to the south and connect with Akron's comparatively lesser flight to the north.

That is, you can't really hide the decline within the "metro area" because the metro area only became a metro area because of the decline.

But Buffalo and Pittsburgh surrounding counties/communities also fell as well. Cleveland-Akron metro area (or region if you will) had a more favorable curve.

Cleveland took full advantage of the 1990’s boom, growing quite decent, whereas Pittsburgh and Buffalo kept going down.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

If I’m not mistaken, Detroit CSA peak is in 2000. And it declined between 1970-1990. Cleveland-Akron, as Detroit, had ups and downs, whereas Pittsburgh and Buffalo declined continuously from 1960 and 1970 to 2010.

Detroit MSA peaked in 2000, but the Detroit CSA has not posted a decline. In fact, it's up about 24% since 1970, which is a stark contrast to the declines in other Rust Belt CSAs over the same period of time.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Detroit MSA peaked in 2000, but the Detroit CSA has not posted a decline. In fact, it's up about 24% since 1970, which is a stark contrast to the declines in other Rust Belt CSAs over the same period of time.

Ihearthead, peaked in 2000 at 5.456 million: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/usa/combmetro/

I have all CSAs and MSAs tabled county by county and using different definition, from 1950 to 2020, and I'm pretty sure it declined between 1970-1990. Between 1970-1980 it did, this one I'm sure. I'll confirm when I get back home.

I exclude Lenawee County from my definition (only Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor and Monroe MSAs on mine), but it wouldn't make a difference.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Ihearthead, peaked in 2000 at 5.456 million: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/usa/combmetro/

I have all CSAs and MSAs tabled county by county and using different definition, from 1950 to 2020, and I'm pretty sure it declined between 1970-1990. Between 1970-1980 it did, this one I'm sure. I'll confirm when I get back home.

I exclude Lenawee County from my definition (only Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor and Monroe MSAs on mine), but it wouldn't make a difference.

There seems to be a break between that and the Wikipedia entries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Detroit#Demographics

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

There seems to be a break between that and the Wikipedia entries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Detroit#Demographics

Wikipedia is a mess for metro areas. They often use definitions from the time (e.g. comparing the 1981 metro area definition with the 1993 one).

Best thing is making your on Excel sheet and put the counties together. For them, Wikipedia figures are perfect, going back to 1790 Census.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Wikipedia is a mess for metro areas. They often use definitions from the time (e.g. comparing the 1981 metro area definition with the 1993 one).

Best thing is making your on Excel sheet and put the counties together. For them, Wikipedia figures are perfect, going back to 1790 Census.

I just manually recalculated the CSA numbers myself and my calculation ties to yours. The CSA did peak in 2000, so it's not quite accurate to say that it never declined -- the Detroit CSA is down about 0.5% from peak. HOWEVER, Detroit's CSA is still up about 22% over 1970, versus other Rust Belt CSA's which are still down since 1970. So there is still quite a big difference between a region that has substantial growth in the post-industrial era, and regions that have had substantial decline in the post-industrial era.

[edale]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I just manually recalculated the CSA numbers myself and my calculation ties to yours. The CSA did peak in 2000, so it's not quite accurate to say that it never declined -- the Detroit CSA is down about 0.5% from peak. HOWEVER, Detroit's CSA is still up about 22% over 1970, versus other Rust Belt CSA's which are still down since 1970. So there is still quite a big difference between a region that has substantial growth in the post-industrial era, and regions that have had substantial decline in the post-industrial era.

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!

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I just manually recalculated the CSA numbers myself and my calculation ties to yours. The CSA did peak in 2000, so it's not quite accurate to say that it never declined -- the Detroit CSA is down about 0.5% from peak. HOWEVER, Detroit's CSA is still up about 22% over 1970, versus other Rust Belt CSA's which are still down since 1970. So there is still quite a big difference between a region that has substantial growth in the post-industrial era, and regions that have had substantial decline in the post-industrial era.

Yeah, Cleveland-Akron's peak is either 1970 or 2000. It's a close call. I don't remember which one is the higher though.

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!

He's using fixed definitions. So it doesn't matter. Detroit metro area has grown.