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All one has to do is travel through the rust belt to see it's signs of continuing decay in many areas.
Especially through PA and upstate NY.
Even that varies though as you can find a range of neighborhoods even in cities in both of those areas. Suburbs are overwhelmingly fine too. Rural areas can vary, but I'd say they are generally better or on par with rural areas in other states.
Even that varies though as you can find a range of neighborhoods even in cities in both of those areas. Suburbs are overwhelmingly fine too. Rural areas can vary, but I'd say they are generally better or on par with rural areas in other states.
I was going to say, the rural areas are lacking and going downhill, but a lot of that isn't directly tied to "rust belt", it's just that people want to be in cities more and in many areas of the country the rural areas can be much more run down and mostly full of older people who just never left. Certainly that way in Iowa, the small towns are very sad, but it has nothing to do with declining heavy industry. Certainly true in the great plains. It's mostly the central cities of certain metros where you can see the rust belt still alive. Even going to the suburbs of Cleveland, Detroit or Youngstown they will look much like everywhere else in the USA and be fine. It's the hard hit central areas that show the demise. Much of that is depopulated though and businesses are all gone. Go to the old industrial areas of the Chicago metro...south side, Gary, etc, or Detroit or wherever else and see the decay and carnage - but that's not really mentioned much even in many of those areas because the people have already left for the most part. What % of people in Metro Detroit live in Detroit? 15%?
Which makes me guess you've never been in any part of the metro area but those places?
I don't know, I sort of agree with that. Chicago has a very affluent downtown and the obvious northside neighborhoods along the coast, but very large sections of the city are no better than what you would find in any other Rustbelt city like Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis etc.
Not to mention large swaths of South and West Chicago contain some of the roughest and most violent urban areas in America. The economic and racial segregation, the decay, the sense of past glory can all be felt in huge portions of the city.
Chicago is definitely rust belt, even though it's partially recovered. Hell, Boston and NYC were originally part of the rust belt as well. Chicago has recovered less however, as it hasn't yet shifted to consistent population growth.
The rust belt doesn't really go further west than the "Quad Cities" area on the border of Iowa and Illinois. Cedar Rapids maybe. Duluth could be considered an outlier even. But for the most part, manufacturing in the farm belt is agriculture centered, and wasn't hurt too badly with deindustrialization.
New York and Boston have fully recovered from any "Rust Belt" malaise they ever had. Chicago and Philadelphia have mostly recovered, though it's a tenacious recovery in some ways. Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis/St. Paul were never very industrial in the first place, so they never dealt with the economic misfortune that other nearby cities did. Hartford, Rochester, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and St. Louis all had more varied economies, so while they did have some tough going for a while, their economies have remained relatively steady and intact. Pittsburgh was the first to deal with a structural economic upheaval, which actually expedited its recovery process today because less time was wasted trying to save what couldn't be saved. Cleveland and Detroit have just now gone through the structural upheaval that Pittsburgh did. Buffalo has been quiet, but appears to be the next major city in line for recovery. Providence is still pretty quiet.
I believe the worst areas now are actually in rural upstate New York and rural western Pennsylvania. More people are moving out than moving in, and there are more deaths than births. Transportation connections are sparse because of the mountainous terrain. There's not enough arable land to have an agricultural economy of any consequence. There's an outright war on coal as an energy source. New York has a moratorium on natural gas drilling, and many jobs in the field are nomadic in nature, so they can't be relied on for a permanent boost. Most of the new jobs for energy executives are in the Pittsburgh area. About the only chance some of these places might have is with outdoor recreation and tourism, which is actually an underdeveloped aspect of the regional economy, given the natural assets.
Philadelphia still has some SCARY areas. I was just there last year and drove around looking at some apartments advertised on craigslist. Lets just say I have never knocked on the door of an apartment terrified I would never come back out again. I'm used to living in the city too so rough neighborhoods usually don't worry me but this whole street was terrifying. Even the cab driver was worried about being down there. I begged him to wait for me until I came out and everything was fine but I wouldn't live in that neighborhood even if it was free. lol.
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As bad as selling a Senate seat is, the Gov. prior to Blago was George Ryan, also currently in jail. As Illinois Secretary of State, his office was selling commercial drivers' licenses; one recipient of these licenses killed an entire family while driving with his ''authorized'' commercial license.
I love how Chicagoans like to play that that Chicago is not part of the ''rust belt''. Roughly 1,000,000 residents leave the city and it is considered to be ''booming'' while vast areas of Chicago are wastelands from its industrial decline.
Remember the Senate seat up for sale was the current President's. which is even scarier. ''Senator'' Burris lied as well about lobbying for the seat from Blago but was left alone because he was going to play the race card.
Ive always disliked the term "rust belt" but I agree with you that Chicago is no different than other cities in the region when it comes to its challenges. I have always liked visiting Chicago, it has one of the coolest skylines in the USA with its lakefront and skyscrapers. It has so much going for it, but the corruption thing that persists in that city is a long term problem. I just wonder why???, no other Midwest state has that much corruption. Illinois has it all the way to the governors mansion. Is it because of the history of the mobsters there??
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