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In my very humble opinion, Boston is not a rustbelt city. Washington DC experienced similar population loss, is it a rustbelt city? A rustbelt city is one in which manufacturing was the largest component of the economy. Also, rustbelt cities in general, had massive extent of urban blight, white flight and current populations in which African-Americans comprised 45 to 85 % percent of the population (except Pittsburgh). Boston never had the extent of white flight as St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.
Also, you overlooked the vast number of universities in the Boston area which also prevented it from declining so much, and differentiates itself from the "true" rustbelt cities
Not necessarily, as Pittsburgh and Buffalo are a couple of cities/areas that have their share of colleges/universities. There are other "Rust Belt" cities/areas where there is a major college/university or that have multiple colleges/universities as well. So, what may keep said areas from being worse than they are, are the institutions of higher learning. That in turn, could allow for such areas to bounce back as well, if they know how to leverage the presence of those institutions properly.
In my very humble opinion, Boston is not a rustbelt city. Washington DC experienced similar population loss, is it a rustbelt city? A rustbelt city is one in which manufacturing was the largest component of the economy. Also, rustbelt cities in general, had massive extent of urban blight, white flight and current populations in which African-Americans comprised 45 to 85 % percent of the population (except Pittsburgh). Boston never had the extent of white flight as St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.
Also, you overlooked the vast number of universities in the Boston area which also prevented it from declining so much, and differentiates itself from the "true" rustbelt cities
Manufacturing has to have been the largest component of the economy? Is not considered a rust belt city by that metric? It certainly has a lot of rust belt characteristics.
Some of these "cities" were never that large to begin with, and shouldn't even be included in the same grouping. I know you're including them for percentage based losses, but Flint, Gary, and Niagra Falls really have no place on this list, competing against cities over 5 times their size.
In my very humble opinion, Boston is not a rustbelt city. Washington DC experienced similar population loss, is it a rustbelt city? A rustbelt city is one in which manufacturing was the largest component of the economy. Also, rustbelt cities in general, had massive extent of urban blight, white flight and current populations in which African-Americans comprised 45 to 85 % percent of the population (except Pittsburgh). Boston never had the extent of white flight as St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.
Also, you overlooked the vast number of universities in the Boston area which also prevented it from declining so much, and differentiates itself from the "true" rustbelt cities
You touched upon something that I’ve discussed on this forum at length: the term rust belt is often racially loaded. Whether intentional or not, people don’t like to describe Rust Belt to cities without large black populations. Boston, and New England as a whole underwent massive deindustrialization just like the Midwest and interior Northeast. New England’s manufacturing industry was mostly textile. Massive reduction in US textiles, and decreased shipping in Boston Harbor led to dramatic population loss. DC, on the hand, was never heavily industrialized.
Yes, Boston’s universities made the city more resilient, as evidenced by its speedy recovery, but it certainly experienced Rust Belt decline. There are actually a lot of parallels between Pittsburgh and Boston: neither experienced debilitating white flight, and their universities help to bouy them, the difference being that Pittsburgh was far more industrial than Boston ever was, and lacked the regional importance to avoid collapse.
If Boston is considered a rust belt city, then so too would New York City. It had virtually nothing but manufacturing and trade jobs until the 40s or 50s.
If Boston is considered a rust belt city, then so too would New York City. It had virtually nothing but manufacturing and trade jobs until the 40s or 50s.
Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The rest still have a lot of work to do.
IMHO the ranking is something like this:
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
Buffalo
Cleveland
Detroit
Everywhere else
I'm basing this on the number census tracts with middle-class ($50,000+) household income. Pittsburgh far and away wins this - it's the only city with genuinely rich areas within city limits. St. Louis has a large number of individual neighborhoods in the south/west which are middle class. Buffalo has a couple fanning north from Allentown. Cleveland has a few scattered pockets, most of which are on the city's western fringes and not actually urban. Detroit still has virtually none.
The rest of the cities on this list have no gentrification worth speaking of. Okay, Gary has Miller Beach, but it's basically a suburban neighborhood totally cut off from the rest of the city.
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
Buffalo
Cleveland
Detroit
Everywhere else
I'm basing this on the number census tracts with middle-class ($50,000+) household income. Pittsburgh far and away wins this - it's the only city with genuinely rich areas within city limits. St. Louis has a large number of individual neighborhoods in the south/west which are middle class. Buffalo has a couple fanning north from Allentown. Cleveland has a few scattered pockets, most of which are on the city's western fringesand not actually urban. Detroit still has virtually none.
The rest of the cities on this list have no gentrification worth speaking of. Okay, Gary has Miller Beach, but it's basically a suburban neighborhood totally cut off from the rest of the city.
There isn't any part of the City of Cleveland proper that isn't urban.
Yes, there are some large lots and small mansion-like homes in the Edgewater neighborhood, but these are not rural estates (e.g., Hunting Valley), and a few blocks away are definitely urban areas with good mass transit, such as Detroit Ave.
City-data says that the population density of the Edgewater neighborhood, with some significant multi-story apartment/condo complexes is over 18,000/square mile!!!
Lowering Cleveland's population density are significant cultural/park/medical acreage (certainly very urban in an excellent way) in the Greater University Circle area and hollowed out neighborhoods that haven't experienced gentrification or more significant economic recovery.
Cleveland's population density still is over 5,100/square mile. Some suburbs (e.g., Mentor, OH) are considered urban, despite population densities of less than 2,000/square mile (massive commercial/industrial acreage and some significant natural areas). Even the Kamm's Corner neighborhood of Cleveland has a population density of over 5,000, and it may be considered the most "suburban" of neighborhoods in Cleveland proper.
Admittedly, some Cleveland suburbs, such as Lakewood or Cleveland Hts., have greater population densities than Cleveland proper, often due to significant multi-story (high-rise in Lakewood's Gold Coast) apartment/condo districts.
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