What is the most quintessential rustbelt city? (taxes, vs.)

[Soonhun]

Gary always was the default Rust Belt city in my mind.

[RocketSci]

I think of cities like Youngstown and Flint. The larger cities listed have more to offer, and to me the greatest damages from deindustrialization have been in the dozens of smaller cities and towns affected. Just re-watched the original Slapshot movie last week, filmed in 1977, and it is still painful to see the old steel towns pictured in the movie in their last days in the movie and in real-life.

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by RocketSci

I think of cities like Youngstown and Flint. The larger cities listed have more to offer, and to me the greatest damages from deindustrialization have been in the dozens of smaller cities and towns affected.

yes very single industry dominated and small to evolve easily


Akron would be another the tire capital of the world at one time


for larger cities it would see to be either Detroit or Cleveland for me, something about cities on the lake (Detroit is close enough)


glad to see positive things happening in both of these


places like an Akron have a more difficult road unless you grow up to be a NBA stud

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

While Pittsburgh might win this, it doesn't really deserve to, because it's very different from other parts of the rust belt.

1. Starting around 1900, most of the heavy industry in Pittsburgh moved outside of the city proper and into nearby "mill towns." There isn't a single big factory (abandoned or not) left within the city proper. In some cases (like Almono in Hazelwood) the spots are still mostly vacant and waiting redevelopment. In others they have been replaced by big new mixed use developments (South Side Works). Some have been turned into expensive apartment complexes (Heinz Lofts, Cork Factory). You have to go out into the suburbs to somewhere like Carrie Furnace to see a cool old abandoned factory. At the same time, the supposed modern-day "eds/meds" renaissance isn't really new. As the factories moved outward, the city became more white collar in the 20th century, and it always had a large area in the East End which (even during the worst period) was upper middle class to wealthy.

2. Pittsburgh's high level of population decline was mostly driven by declining household sizes, with white flight a very small component compared to the rest of the rust belt. For example, even though Pittsburgh's population is down over 50% from its all-time high, due to declining household size, in the present it would only need an additional 110,000 people to get back to its all-time high in terms of number of households. This is clear if you spend time exploring the city - there's certainly blight here, but it's much more limited to particular patches of the city than somewhere like Detroit or even Cleveland, with little in the way of "urban prairies."

I agree it wasn't white flight that crashed Pittsburgh's population, it was the gradual decline of the steel industry in the 70s, then the crash in the early 80s. The entire MSA has lost population.
https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/data/p...ttsburgh%2C_PA

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by North 42

Declining household sizes affected every city. I’m pretty sure that that’s not the only reason Pittsburgh’s population is down over 50%.

My point is Pittsburgh is an atypical rust belt city for a number of reasons, even before the city became trendy over the last decade.

1. Relatively low levels of white flight (still 65% non-Hispanic white, only 26% black).
2. It retained high levels of wealth within the core city.
3. Industry was to a great deal spread around in the "suburbs" up and down the rivers, while a lot of the interior neighborhoods catered to the professional class.
4. Downtown retained a strong white-collar base with very few "parking craters."
5. Transit usage is higher (and less concentrated among the poor) than other rust belt cities.
6. Developed into a defacto "college town" (IIRC only Boston has a higher proportion of college students).

This doesn't mean it's not a rust belt city of course, but it's somewhat anomalous for the rust belt in many ways.

[_Buster]

I generally think of cities on or near the great lakes, relatively flat, lots of snow, with hollowed out cores. So among the larger cities it would be Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo which best represent it.

[adavi215]

I was torn between Detroit and Cleveland. I decided to vote for Detroit given the importance of the automotive industry to the city. Charlotte now has a larger population than Detroit and I believe at one point Detroit was over 1 million in the city limits. I could be wrong.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by adavi215

I was torn between Detroit and Cleveland. I decided to vote for Detroit given the importance of the automotive industry to the city. Charlotte now has a larger population than Detroit and I believe at one point Detroit was over 1 million in the city limits. I could be wrong.

To be fair, Charlotte is just under 298 square miles of land, while Detroit is just under 139 square miles of land.

[RocketSci]

Originally Posted by adavi215

I was torn between Detroit and Cleveland. I decided to vote for Detroit given the importance of the automotive industry to the city. Charlotte now has a larger population than Detroit and I believe at one point Detroit was over 1 million in the city limits. I could be wrong.

Detroit LOST over 1 million within it's city limits. It was at 1.8 million in 1950, now at about 700 thousand.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by RocketSci

Detroit LOST over 1 million within it's city limits. It was at 1.8 million in 1950, now at about 700 thousand.

A lot of those people just moved to the suburbs though. They still occupy a space smaller than Charlotte.