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Actually Kansas City is the poster child for this. In 1950 it was 80sq mi, with 450k residents. In 2020 it's 320sq mi with 510K residents. Kansas City flies under the radar because it's population numbers show small growth over the last 70 years, but most people don't realize it grew it's borders 400% to do so. I'd be curious to know how it fairs on a list like this. I've never been, but I have to assume there's evidence of significant decline in some of it's core neighborhoods.
I don't really consider Kansas City to be a rust belt city. It's more like Columbus, Indianapolis, Omaha, etc in that it was mainly surrounded by unincorporated county land rather than being hemmed in by suburbs. Also I don't think the metro as a whole ever went through a substantial period of decline.
There is a wide swathe of black neighborhoods which starts southeast of Downtown and continues south all the way to city limits. There's lots of blocks that look like this. But I don't consider the presence of mostly abandoned black neighborhoods something unique to the Rust Belt. You can find a fair amount of this in some Sun Belt southern cities as well - even in high-growth areas like Atlanta.
Well the list is ranking "recovery" not necessarily saying any city has "recovered". Also Rochester is ranked in the lower half of the list which would track with your assertion.
Yes but I mean all time, Buffalo or Pittsburgh probably bottomed out economically in the late 1990s, Rochester probably peaked in the mid 1990s. And went downhill with Kodak and Xerox from there. Just an overall very different economic history. It never fell as far though.
I don't really consider Kansas City to be a rust belt city. It's more like Columbus, Indianapolis, Omaha, etc in that it was mainly surrounded by unincorporated county land rather than being hemmed in by suburbs. Also I don't think the metro as a whole ever went through a substantial period of decline.
There is a wide swathe of black neighborhoods which starts southeast of Downtown and continues south all the way to city limits. There's lots of blocks that look like this. But I don't consider the presence of mostly abandoned black neighborhoods something unique to the Rust Belt. You can find a fair amount of this in some Sun Belt southern cities as well - even in high-growth areas like Atlanta.
Good post. It's not the ratio of abandoned neighborhoods or their demography makeup that makes me curious. Understood that those characteristics transcend this discussion. My guess is that it hasn't seen the raw metro growth of an Indy, Cbus, or Omaha. Though I'll have to look at the numbers to be sure. What makes me curious is the ratio of land acquisition to population growth in that time frame. 400% land growth to only 10% population growth. As far as I can tell no other city comes close to the disparity seen in KC. If most of that growth has happened in undeveloped prairie over that time my impression would be that the 80sq mi original core would be quite thinned.
I compiled numbers somewhere where I looked at the city population/land/ and metro growth over that time for several cities. When I get home I'll look it up and see if it's worthy of adding to this discussion.
Yes but I mean all time, Buffalo or Pittsburgh probably bottomed out economically in the late 1990s, Rochester probably peaked in the mid 1990s. And went downhill with Kodak and Xerox from there. Just an overall very different economic history. It never fell as far though.
How are Chicago and Philly on this list? Would anyone ever list them as rust belt cities?
Chicago is a global city and Philadelphia is too big and diverse to be on this list.
Generally, Philadelphia is not considered part of the rust belt. The Leigh Valley (tri-city area of Bethlehem, Easton, and Allentown) is usually the "start" of the rust belt in Pennsylvania and it runs like a 'belt' across PA/OH/IN/IL/etc. The real rust belt is where entire metro's grow "rusty". Not just like select urban areas.
Milwaukee staved off the worst population decline in large part because it was the only Rust Belt city which successfully annexed a wide swathe of suburbia, expanding out to the county line to the Northwest of the city. This helped to mask some of the core decline. Though it is also true the amount of urban prairie is much more limited than you see elsewhere.
That's a very good point as Milwaukee annexed areas in the 1950s. While much of the Rust Belt de-industrialization and job losses happened in the decades following, Milwaukee was also some mid-ranking in its population size among notable manufacturing cities so within those annexed boundaries laid a lot of undeveloped land, so a fair bit of the suburban flight and development occurred within Milwaukee's municipal boundaries. I think not only did that mean that as a proportion of the city, blight didn't cover as much percentage of square miles, but also that the retained tax base and development meant there was less of a terrible financial spiral for Milwaukee municipal tax rolls. I also think there's something to be said for not having as strong of an encirclement of downtown with freeways compared to some Rust Belt peers.
Generally, Philadelphia is not considered part of the rust belt. The Leigh Valley (tri-city area of Bethlehem, Easton, and Allentown) is usually the "start" of the rust belt in Pennsylvania and it runs like a 'belt' across PA/OH/IN/IL/etc. The real rust belt is where entire metro's grow "rusty". Not just like select urban areas.
Yes but I mean all time, Buffalo or Pittsburgh probably bottomed out economically in the late 1990s, Rochester probably peaked in the mid 1990s. And went downhill with Kodak and Xerox from there. Just an overall very different economic history. It never fell as far though.
I can't speak for Buffalo, but the nadir for Pittsburgh was sometime between 1985 and 1995. It was after the deindustrialization, but before the job opportunities and quality of life began to improve again for most people. There was sort of a "what do we do now" inertia that settled in during this time, and it was the reason why Pittsburgh missed out on most of the 1990s economic expansion.
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