Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JManc

Your first floor layout seems pretty standard for those Chicago style flats. Your kitchen is huge compared to what I've seen though.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, our building was gut-rehabbed down to masonry shell about 2 decades ago, so the current interior plan is not original. The original kitchen was likely a bit smaller and the adjoining breakfast room was almost certainly a small bedroom in the original plan.

And of course the biggest difference would've been no staircase down to the basement in the original plan. The basement was originally either storage or an illegal garden unit. It's not terribly deep in the ground and there are a lot of windows down there, so probably an illegal garden unit.

[lio45]

"Illegal" ... because zoning there doesn't allow 4-flat density?!? How anti-urban!

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

"Illegal" ... because zoning there doesn't allow 4-flat density?!? How anti-urban!

No, to meet the letter of the law, you need to have two direct paths of egress from any residential unit. Many garden units in chicago don't have that and are thus "illegal".

Such would've been the case in our building if it did in fact once have a garden unit in the basement, with the sole path of egress through the back basement door.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

No, to meet the letter of the law, you need to have two direct paths of egress from any residential unit. Many garden units in chicago don't have that and are thus "illegal".

Such would've been the case in our building if it did in fact once have a garden unit in the basement, with the sole path of egress through the back basement door.

Wow, that's incredibly strict!

In Quebec, two means of egress only start to be required if you have 9 units or more, or 5 stories or more.

I have a four-story building from ~1920 that has only one staircase for the entire building... it has nine very large residential units (4 br flats and 3 br flats, most of them rented to group of university roommates) and to be legal, I had to either add a second staircase (would be unthinkable, except that I own all the adjacent properties so it becomes actually doable - this new independent exit that the building wasn't designed for would be on the neighboring property, with the green light of the neighbor who's me) or else "remove" one unit - and I did the latter for the time being (it's used as storage).

So, you've got about ~20 tenants in a building and only one means of egress is acceptable. Because I have only eight apartments, and less than 5 stories of above ground building height.

(That building, however, is really close to the very upper limit of what's acceptable without two means of egress.)

I'm just using that upper limit example to illustrate the drastic contrast with Chicago - I guess they got burned in the great Chicago fire and decided they'd become extreme...?

[lio45]

BTW, I'm always interested to learn how things are in other cities and jurisdictions - thanks for the info.

At first sight, I'd guess our home areas are both outliers - Quebec is more lenient because it has chosen to adapt to its older building stock, while Chicago is likely more strict than cities that didn't burn spectacularly at some point.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Maybe he was referring to something like the ratio of wages to cost of living?

The supplemental poverty measure is done by the census, it is a more complete view of poverty that takes into account social programs and cost of living. So no I'm not making this up and no it's not even some sort of obscure bootleg measure, it's the census.

California has the highest in the country at near 20%


https://calbudgetcenter.org/resource...c-necessities/

Even the official poverty rate which isn't a fair comparison is still lower in Illinois, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than California.

States that aren't considered rustbelt like Texas have higher official poverty rates than any state in the Midwest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...y_poverty_rate

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

Chicago is likely more strict than cities that didn't burn spectacularly at some point.

Bingo!

The legacy of the great chicago fire still looms large in this town's psychology.

Even though that event occurred nearly 150 years ago, chicago still enforces some of the strictest fire and life safety regulations in the nation.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

"Rust Belt" can be anywhere where you have industrial decay. Abandoned factory buildings, vacant office buildings, high unemployment and poverty. It doesn't have to be in midwestern it eastern cities. There are western and southern examples as well. Butte, Pueblo, Bisbee, Nogales, Ely, Taft, Birmingham (yes, some of these places are coming back). Many smaller farm towns everywhere are depopulating as mechanization and corporatization of farms reduces the need for small market towns. The wheat belt in the Great Plains has especially lost these towns. Some have been almost abandoned. Nothing more desolate and depressing than a dying or abandoned town. The old mining "ghost towns" of the west are the rust belt prototype. The excellent film "The Last Picture Show" covers the human wreckage in a dying west Texas town.

Rust Belt doesn't mean poverty.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

No, to meet the letter of the law, you need to have two direct paths of egress from any residential unit. Many garden units in chicago don't have that and are thus "illegal".

Such would've been the case in our building if it did in fact once have a garden unit in the basement, with the sole path of egress through the back basement door.

How does that work out for high-rise units? Do two common stairwells account for the required means of egress, or is that requirement waived for sprinklered buildings?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Do two common stairwells account for the required means of egress

Isn't that absolutely obvious? Quebec building codes (and I'm sure, same in Chicago) demand each unit has to have two independent paths to outdoors safety for all 9+ units / 5+ stories buildings (so, all high rises).

I guess I see what you mean - if you have only one door but then you're outdoors when you get out, that's okay in Quebec but not in Chicago. And in a high rise, you can have only one door but then you have to have two means of egress from that point in the hallway that's outside your door. But in Chicago, that would likely not work...?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Rust Belt doesn't mean poverty.

Right. The Rust Belt isn't a high poverty geography. It's pretty much average.

The low poverty states are generally the Northeast and West Coast, and the low poverty states are generally the Southeast and a few interior western states.

The previously mentioned supplemental poverty rate measures income to housing costs. So it's used for setting Section 8 subsidies and the like, accounting for geographies with high housing values. It isn't intended to reference poverty, unless you think Beverly Hills is poor because the income to housing costs are absurdly skewed.

[yaletown_fella]

London, Ontario and Columbus, Ohio always struck me as more nouveau riche type metro areas that sprouted up in the midst of a rustbelt region.

[BigDipper 80]

I assume London has some pockets too, but Columbus has a decent amount of old money. Wealth was originally concentrated in Olde Towne East, but much of that money moved out to Bexley and Upper Arlington. Areas like New Albany, Dublin, and Easton are definitely more your typical nouveau-riche areas.

[edale]

Columbus also has plenty of 'rusty' areas, too. It was a smaller city than Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. and always had Ohio State University and the state capital to make its economy a little more balanced and less dependent on industry. It also never experienced documented population decline because it continuously annexed land. Its core, though, suffered much the same fate as other midwestern cities in the 70s-2000s. Population loss, abandonment, all occurred there as it did elsewhere. The city has grown impressively since 2000, though. And imo, it does feel a bit 'new' compared to the other metros around it, save maybe Indy. Maybe more like newly relevant.

[Steely Dan]

speaking of the rust belt, how about some pics of the rustiest part of the rust belt still in operation.

here are the three biggest integrated steel mills left in the US: Indiana Harbor, Gary Works, & Burns Harbor.

all 3 are located within a handful of miles of each other in NW Indiana at the very bottom of lake michigan.

these 3 integrated steel mills combine to produce over half of the nation's blast furnace steel.



Indiana Harbor (Cleveland Cliffs, formerly ArcelorMittal):


source: wikipedia



Gary Works (US Steel):


source: https://www.wbaa.org/post/steelworke...utcry#stream/0



Burns Harbor (Cleveland Cliffs, formerly ArcelorMittal):


source: wikipedia

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Rust Belt doesn't mean poverty.

Yes and no. It generally means bustling industrial towns that have seen their best days in the rear view mirror with a few examples where they transitioned successfully in their new realities; Pittsburgh. One could land a high paying job right out of high school. Now it's either a low paying service job or go to college and leave the area for a skilled/ professional job.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

speaking of the rust belt, how about some pics of the rustiest part of the rust belt still in operation.

here are the three biggest steel mills left in the US: Indiana Harbor, Gary Works, & Burns Harbor.

all 3 are located within a handful of miles of each other in NW Indiana at the very bottom of lake michigan.

these 3 steel mills combine to produce over half of the nation's blast furnace steel (brand new steel made from raw mineral ore, not steel made from other recycled steel in electric arc furnaces).


Indiana Harbor (Cleveland Cliffs, formerly ArcelorMittal):


source: wikipedia



Gary Works (US Steel):


source: https://www.wbaa.org/post/steelworke...utcry#stream/0



Burns Harbor (Cleveland Cliffs, formerly ArcelorMittal):


source: wikipedia

Reminds me of the Alberta tar sands and the mining pits of Mordor

[BigDipper 80]

Zug Island and the Ford Rouge Plant is the most impressively horrifying Rust Belt wasteland, IMO.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

speaking of the rust belt, how about some pics of the rustiest part of the rust belt still in operation.

metaphorically speaking, wouldn't that be the least rusty part of the rust belt?

[dc_denizen]

The Houston ship channel is just as industrial , but not rusty