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In 1870 and 1950 respectively I feel like both regions had a combo of unmatured cities and nowheresvilles that would grow into major cities but the question is which region had the bigger boom in your opinion?
I think Rust belt is more impressive because these days people can live anywhere and work anywhere (for the most part).
Location and networking/building a resume or brand are not as interconnected. People live in Mexico or Bali and work with clients in North America.
Because of that, I'd say the Rust belt boom was impressive since they had to attract people there and provide them with everything they needed to remain there. Whereas people could move to metro Mobile, AL if they want a low COL and be near the beach but have an employer based out of DC or Philly.
I think Rust belt is more impressive because these days people can live anywhere and work anywhere (for the most part).
Location and networking/building a resume or brand are not as interconnected. People live in Mexico or Bali and work with clients in North America.
Because of that, I'd say the Rust belt boom was impressive since they had to attract people there and provide them with everything they needed to remain there. Whereas people could move to metro Mobile, AL if they want a low COL and be near the beach but have an employer based out of DC or Philly.
Not everyone can work remote. It has to be a pretty small amount of the national workforce.
But I'd agree, it's also much easier to move these days, look for work online before you get there, and check out exactly what it looks like from the internet.
Rust belt by far...Lots of legacy institutions were realized during the rust belt boom. There's a reason a city like Cleveland has amenities that were made for a far larger city.
What has a city like Charlotte gained from the sunbelt boom? More cul de sacs and subdivisons? boring. American city planning was at its peak pre WW2, as was the time of the rust belt boom.
Rust belt by far...Lots of legacy institutions were realized during the rust belt boom. There's a reason a city like Cleveland has amenities that were made for a far larger city.
What has a city like Charlotte gained from the sunbelt boom? More cul de sacs and subdivisons? boring. American city planning was at its peak pre WW2, as was the time of the rust belt boom.
Cleveland peaked in the top 5 largest cities in America. It’s comparison would be a city like Atlanta or Dallas in the Sun Belt era, not Charlotte.
I think there’s benefits to both booms, and impressive is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. Both booms took advantages of the world as it was. Certainly they were structured differently. The boom peaked higher during the earlier one befitting a younger nation with more immigration. But the later one might be more impressive given its drawing so extensively from internal migration. All in what you choose to focus on I suppose.
That said, the urban peak in American cities did happen pre-automobile, so on that score perhaps the rust belt boom for that alone.
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Originally Posted by Heel82
Cleveland peaked in the top 5 largest cities in America. It’s comparison would be a city like Atlanta or Dallas in the Sun Belt era, not Charlotte.
I think there’s benefits to both booms, and impressive is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. Both booms took advantages of the world as it was. Certainly they were structured differently. The boom peaked higher during the earlier one befitting a younger nation with more immigration. But the later one might be more impressive given its drawing so extensively from internal migration. All in what you choose to focus on I suppose.
That said, the urban peak in American cities did happen pre-automobile, so on that score perhaps the rust belt boom for that alone.
The bolded part is only half the story. International immigration is very much a driving factor in Sunbelt growth especially in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami.
The Rust Belt and it's not even a competition in my mind. IMO, there is nothing impressive about the Sun Belt due to the way it grew in tandem with the rise of auto-centric planning. Outside of San Francisco (if it's even considered Sun Belt) and San Diego to a much lesser extent, no city in the Sun Belt feels like an actual city to me. Give me all the architecture, walkability, legacy institutions, and transit networks that a good number of Rust Belt cities offer over any Sun Belt city any day of the week. While I do prefer warmth over the cold, I'll take shivering over being required to own a car to live my everyday life.
The bolded part is only half the story. International immigration is very much a driving factor in Sunbelt growth especially in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami.
I also think it underrated the degree to which internal migration was a big driver of the rust belt boom too. Cincinnati is 46% black. Those people came from America. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland had similarly huge Appalachian migration to their cities. So much so the fair housing statues in Cincinnati includes “those of Appalachian origin”
The Rust Belt and it's not even a competition in my mind. IMO, there is nothing impressive about the Sun Belt due to the way it grew in tandem with the rise of auto-centric planning. Outside of San Francisco (if it's even considered Sun Belt) and San Diego to a much lesser extent, no city in the Sun Belt feels like an actual city to me. Give me all the architecture, walkability, legacy institutions, and transit networks that a good number of Rust Belt cities offer over any Sun Belt city any day of the week. While I do prefer warmth over the cold, I'll take shivering over being required to own a car to live my everyday life.
That seems to be an argument for which period was America the most impressive. Maybe it’s one and the same, but I was trying to think of the impressiveness of the booms itself. The Rust Belt boom coincided with the Second Industrial Revolution, and therefore was top-down in many ways (factory towns etc). The Sun Belt boom that seemingly started more as a bottoms-up movement that began overlapping with the Information Revolution. I think there’s a lot to unpack there.
The city infrastructure and layout is dense and compact, resulting in many cities having once really good rail and bus lines. Great parks, downtowns, and inner city infrastructure in general.
Sun belt cities have resulted in mostly lower density downtowns with large parking lots, lack of public transportation, leapfrog type of suburb development, and miles and miles of low density housing, with huge green space in-between.
As-a-result, many sunbelt cities are playing catchup, or struggling to contain out of control population growth with very poor traffic and public transportation systems.
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