Is Chicago part of the Rust Belt? (home, law school)

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

South Chicagoland definitely is. You cross I-55/Stevenson and you feel like you are in a different metro area in every way.

Keep in mind that Gary IS part of Chicagoland. Its less than 30 miles from the DT Chicago, and going from Gary to the far south side doesn't feel like anything has magically changed.

Crossing the Stevenson makes the metro area different how?

I still see bungalows, large amounts of Blacks and Mexicans, italian beef restaurants...

What exactly are you talking about? Go to Mt. Greenwood and see if you can spot much difference between that and Edison Park.

If you're talking POVERTY wise and decline, it's not just south of I-55. It's west of the Loop, north of Lakeview, around the Ryan. Not sure how 55 is the diving line between anything. Maybe between the economically depressed West Side and between the more prosperous Southwest Side.

I do agree about Gary, though. I was more so talking about the city limits, not the metro. Because if we include DuPage and Lake County, as well as Northern Cook, then there is hardly anything Rust Belt about ChicagoLAND.

Also keep in mind that metro Detroit has Oakland County and Ann Arbor which are affluent, educated, and white collared, and in some places hip and trendy similar to other thriving areas.

I didn't know A2 was considered part of Detroit metro.

But either way I am well aware that many Rust Belt metro areas are well to do. Heck, even in Gary, the Miller Beach community is a sharp contrast to the dead downtown area.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

I'd probably give Chicago the prize for being the least rusty of the Rust Belt, especially in comparison to my native St. Louis, but the city definitely still suffers from similar woes.

I didn't even know the Rust Belt went as far south as St. Louis...

[paytonc]

Originally Posted by MassVt

Chicago is a Rust Belt city, as is Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee, and countless small cities spread over the Great Lakes region. The depths to which a city sinks doesn't have anything to do with it, although most Rust Belt cities took a nosedive after the US lost much of its manufacturing base..

The difference, as has been covered at book length elsewhere, is that some cities (like Chicago and Pittsburgh) both had other industries to fall back upon and had leadership that planned in advance for the industrial shift. But at a micro level, yes, many parts of these cities are "rusty."

Plenty of American cities beyond the Rust Belt also lost many thousands of industrial jobs, but they bounced back even faster with new industries. We don't think of the Bay Area as being "rust belt," but many communities there (Richmond, Bayview) were built around heavy industries like shipbuilding or canning, and are still suffering from its loss. It's just that those communities are a much smaller proportion of the overall metro area, which obviously has pivoted to new industries.

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

What exactly are you talking about? Go to Mt. Greenwood and see if you can spot much difference between that and Edison Park.

Um, start with the home prices? That one exception proves the rule. Plenty of other neighborhood pairs would have looked similar in 1930, but incredibly different in 2014: South Shore and Wilmette, Hyde Park and Evanston, Englewood and Uptown, Avalon Park and Mayfair.

Yes, there are prosperous bits in southern Chicagoland, but it's undeniable that the South Side has suffered more from de-industrialization than the North Side -- notably because heavy industry concentrated around the canal/port and Eastern railroad facilities, all of which are south of the city.

Some pockets of northern Chicagoland which relied upon heavy industry are still in dire economic straits, like Waukegan. But since job growth in the post-industrial era has been tilted towards the north, these communities have had an easier time bouncing back than their equivalents to the south.

[Chicago60614]

Areas to the south and southeast have strong rustbelt ties. Chicago metro overall though.....not really. Or if it is rustbelt it's the "least rusty" as someone else stated. Most of the metro including the core has moved beyond manufacturing and heavy industry.

Chicago area has grown from 8,300,000 in 1990 to around 9,700,000 today and that growth has been post-rust for the most part. When it still exists though, it's pretty hard core "rusty", areas to the south and southeast and into Indiana.

The big shot of growth in the 1990's was what really tore Chicago away from its rustbelt roots. The slower growth in the 2000's drifted it further away, just not as quickly or strongly as the big jolt during the 1990's that woke the city up from the 1970-1990 snooze it was in.

[Nodpete]

Chicago is the buckle of the the rust belt.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

I didn't even know the Rust Belt went as far south as St. Louis...

Deindustrialization and white flight following the Great Migration hit St. Louis hard. St. Louis actually lost a higher percentage of its peak population than Detroit did.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by paytonc

Um, start with the home prices? That one exception proves the rule. Plenty of other neighborhood pairs would have looked similar in 1930, but incredibly different in 2014: South Shore and Wilmette, Hyde Park and Evanston, Englewood and Uptown, Avalon Park and Mayfair.

Hyde Park and Evanston are becoming more similar. Not there yet but HP is trying. South Shore and Wilmette are definitely miles apart, as South Shore is a high crime area. Englewood's pairing is Uptown? I would not have guessed.

Yes, there are prosperous bits in southern Chicagoland, but it's undeniable that the South Side has suffered more from de-industrialization than the North Side -- notably because heavy industry concentrated around the canal/port and Eastern railroad facilities, all of which are south of the city.

I agree with that. I don't see how the Stevenson is the diving line, though. I don't think there is a solid dividing line between the decline and the prosperity, but I do get your point.

I will say that I am taking Chicago on its own and NOT including Northwest Indiana, even though they are our cultural brothers in Da Region and our city borders them. The 219 area is DEFINITELY Rust Belt through and through if you simply drive down Route 12 or 20, or go through Hammond, East Chicago, Gary, Michigan City. Interestingly their beaches seem better kept than ours.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by paytonc

The difference, as has been covered at book length elsewhere, is that some cities (like Chicago and Pittsburgh) both had other industries to fall back upon and had leadership that planned in advance for the industrial shift. But at a micro level, yes, many parts of these cities are "rusty" . . .

Pittsburgh was as much a one-industry town as any rust-belt city and suffered just as much or more; if anything, Pittsburgh is the quintessential rust belt city. Its fortunes have only recently stabilized after they hitched their wagon to the emerging "eds and meds" economy that, if anything, is even more fragile than an economy reliant on heavy industry. In the meantime the city proper lost well over half its population and posted yet another loss in the 2010 census (for the 6th census in a row). But more significant is that the Pittsburgh metro area's population has been in constant decline since the 1970 census to the point where it's the same today as it was 80 years ago. Many of the Mon Valley towns are still near-abandoned ghost towns (Braddock for instance reduced to 10% of its peak population), and while some parts of town are experiencing revitalization, evidence of industrial decline is still a prominent part of the region's visual and economic landscape.

Chicago had the good fortune to establish itself as the region's major transportation/distribution hub, which helped establish this city as the region's economic powerhouse and a truly diversified economy. But it only takes a ride down the Orange Line to see that Chicago is a rust-belt city that shared in the economic misfortune that the rest of the region experienced.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by Drover

Pittsburgh was as much a one-industry town as any rust-belt city and suffered just as much or more; if anything, Pittsburgh is the quintessential rust belt city. Its fortunes have only recently stabilized after they hitched their wagon to the emerging "eds and meds" economy that, if anything, is even more fragile than an economy reliant on heavy industry. In the meantime the city proper lost well over half its population and posted yet another loss in the 2010 census (for the 6th census in a row). But more significant is that the Pittsburgh metro area's population has been in constant decline since the 1970 census to the point where it's the same today as it was 80 years ago. Many of the Mon Valley towns are still near-abandoned ghost towns (Braddock for instance reduced to 10% of its peak population), and while some parts of town are experiencing revitalization, evidence of industrial decline is still a prominent part of the region's visual and economic landscape.

Chicago had the good fortune to establish itself as the region's major transportation/distribution hub, which helped establish this city as the region's economic powerhouse and a truly diversified economy. But it only takes a ride down the Orange Line to see that Chicago is a rust-belt city that shared in the economic misfortune that the rest of the region experienced.

While the "meds" part is pretty stable, especially the UPMC, I do have some doubts, like you, about the "eds"part, especially when the offerings are expensive private schools like Duquesne and Carnegie-Mellon. Pittsburgh's population has likely dropped down to the 300k mark, an almost unbelievable decline from its peak years..

[Drover]

Well don't forget there's also Pitt. But even many "meds" functions can be outsourced. My best friend's wife, for instance, is a pharmacist who makes her living writing prescriptions remotely for patients in rural and small-market hospitals that can't afford to keep their own pharmacist on-staff.