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I've lived in Pittsburgh for ten years now, and I've had limited experience with a number of other rust belt cities, including Detroit (lived there), Buffalo (almost went to school there, explored the city a lot) and Cleveland (visited a lot, given I live pretty close to it). I personally feel like Pittsburgh stands above its rust belt peers in a lot of ways right now, although of course that's a subjective opinion.
Therefore, I thought I'd throw this out to you guys - voting on the eight cities I consider the core rust belt today: Rochester, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Detroit, and Milwaukee. Given the rules of this subforum require more than "best overall" I'll provide a few topics to consider.
1. Strong local economy within city limits
2. Healthy core city with low blight and a wide mix of neighborhoods
3. Lowest crime rate
4. Urban built form
5. Good quality of life/cost of living
6. Able to get around well without a car (transit, walkability,etc)
7. Vibrant mixed-use neighborhood commercial districts
8. Good arts scene
9. Educational options
10. The ineffable "culture" aspects - the uniqueness of the city itself
Of those poll choices as a standalone city (meaning when we stop looking at location "near" other big cities and actually at the individual cities and their surrounding environs on the poll itself)?
It's not on the list, but I have to give a little love to Toledo, Ohio. Seriously. Everyone dismisses it, but it has many pluses: a world class zoo (voted best zoo in the country by USA Today), a world class art museum, an amazing metroparks system, a riverfront, a blossoming downtown with a gorgeous ballpark, bars, restaurants, and beautiful loft apartments, and attractive, safe, family friendly suburbs. All this and waterfront access to the Great Lakes.
Toledo is highly underrated and actually has a lot to offer.
I'm not sure Rochester or Cincy should be on this list. They weren't ever big heavy industry type cities.
You should probably drop those two cities and add Chicago, maybe, and/or Toledo? They were both heavy industry cities, but maybe Chicago is too big and Toledo too small for the list.
It's not on the list, but I have to give a little love to Toledo, Ohio. Seriously. Everyone dismisses it, but it has many pluses: a world class zoo (voted best zoo in the country by USA Today), a world class art museum, an amazing metroparks system, a riverfront, a blossoming downtown with a gorgeous ballpark, bars, restaurants, and beautiful loft apartments, and attractive, safe, family friendly suburbs. All this and waterfront access to the Great Lakes.
Toledo is highly underrated and actually has a lot to offer.
Toledo has a nice zoo and nice art museum, but I can't think of anything else. It's pretty ugly and depressed looking, downtown is dead, it's just flat farmland, and every city in the developed world has "attractive safe family friendly suburbs". That's kind of a given.
It's not on the list, but I have to give a little love to Toledo, Ohio. Seriously. Everyone dismisses it, but it has many pluses: a world class zoo (voted best zoo in the country by USA Today), a world class art museum, an amazing metroparks system, a riverfront, a blossoming downtown with a gorgeous ballpark, bars, restaurants, and beautiful loft apartments, and attractive, safe, family friendly suburbs. All this and waterfront access to the Great Lakes.
Toledo is highly underrated and actually has a lot to offer.
Toledo was just a bit too small for me to consider. I mean, in terms of total population, it's not really that much smaller than Pittsburgh, and larger than Buffalo and Rochester by a good bit. But it anchors a very small metro area of only 600,000 - Toledo has pretty broad city limits for a rust belt city. Akron actually has a bigger metro area than Toledo!
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
I'm not sure Rochester or Cincy should be on this list. They weren't ever big heavy industry type cities.
You should probably drop those two cities and add Chicago, maybe, and/or Toledo? They were both heavy industry cities, but maybe Chicago is too big and Toledo too small for the list.
Rochester was maybe iffy, but there's no way Cinci isn't rust belt, even if it wasn't heavy industry in the same way.
Chicago I consider a partially recovered rust belt city. Even if it wasn't, it's too different in scale from the other cities to compare.
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