Quote:
Originally Posted by jbcmh81
I consider that more Detroit. Certainly Chicago has rust belt qualities, but I would argue it's one of the least rust belty of them.
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Two factors come into play: 1 is that Chicago's downtown (the Loop) and adjacent Loop areas, esp to the North, seem so pristine and large, many visitors/tourist never leave these areas and never see the harsh, rundown industrial areas Chicago shares with Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, 2. the Lake Michigan shoreline, because of its shallow floor in/around central, north and near south Chicago, was never conducive to shipping as were the other cities, so there are no industrial ports and/or freight transfer facilities anywhere near Chicago's central areas. And even though Chicago was unusual in that it was the first major American city built via the railroad and not the boat, planners carefully kept industry away from downtown and core central areas...
The bottom line is that because industry, poverty and decay are seemingly invisible to most visitors, Chicago has the allusion of being a non-industrial, white collar city when, in fact, it's roots are very industrial which caused the swell of immigrants and Southern Blacks in the late 19th, early 20th centuries. In Cleveland (especially) and Detroit, industry (and often its decay) is in your face, including the many ruins of abandoned factories and loading facilities. For well over a century, Cleveland's shoreline has struggled to develop residential-ly because of the railroad lines that hug the shoreline that spawned factories and loading ports. In fact few cities have industry so cheek-to-jowl with their downtown area as does Cleveland as, literally, the core Tower City Public Square (mall/office) complex literally overlooks the industrial Flats area next to the winding Cuyahoga River which is daily trafficked by huge ore and other ships.
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