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The blighted Midwest cities the OP mentioned are often talked about for their problems. Detroit is the number one suspect on all these lists, but Detroits condition should not color all Midwestern cities. Minneapolis is a very nice city. Madison and Green Bay in Wisconsin are nice cities. Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor in Michigan are very nice cities. The plains states don't have any blighted cities that I have ever seen. Not every Midwest city is Detroit, Chicago or Gary.
A lot of these are older, rust belt cities. When I lived in Iowa, you may have small towns that had clearly seen better days, but nothing looked like Toledo. I've been to Toledo, Cincy, and some rural OH towns, and Ohio is the biggest eyesore I've ever run across.
That's nice of some of you to say but believe it or not Minneapolis and St. Paul both have some blight too, just maybe not as much as some quintessential Rust Belt cities in the Midwest. There are neighborhoods where more than half of the lots on each block are completely vacant. It's not the "urban prairies" you'll see in Cleveland or Detroit though, I suppose.
Minus Minnesota the rest of the Great Lake states are Rust Belt states along with West Virginia. Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware are sometimes included but it's primarily the great lake states.
Again, that's nice of you to say, but Minnesota isn't immune to Rust Belt-ery......Take a look at Duluth or cities within the Iron Range for Rust Belt evidence. In fact, the "Iron Range" is theoretically the foundation of the Rust Belt/Steel Belt, since the taconite mined there is what's used to create the steel made in Cleveland, Gary, Pittsburgh, etc.
A lot of these are older, rust belt cities. When I lived in Iowa, you may have small towns that had clearly seen better days, but nothing looked like Toledo. I've been to Toledo, Cincy, and some rural OH towns, and Ohio is the biggest eyesore I've ever run across.
Not every Midwest city is Detroit, Chicago or Gary.
I'm not going to act like Chicago hasn't lost population, or that it doesn't have blighted areas, but Chicago does not belong in the same sentence as Detroit or Gary.
Detroit has lost 61% of its speak population; Gary has lost 55% of its peak population; but Chicago has only lost 26%. Chicago's losses are comparable to Minneapolis (27%), Philadelphia (26%), and Boston (23%).
Granted, population loss alone doesn't tell the whole story of how many blighted areas a city may or may not have, but I stand by my assertion that Chicago is not nearly as blighted as Detroit or Gary.
I live in Indianapolis now and there is a ton of blight and dilapiladated buildings in the core city. Crime is high. Many homes are being sold for under $20k and no one will buy them. Large swathes of the city look completely abandoned.
I went through Cincinatti today and driving on 71 through downtown from the eastern burbs is a lesson in blight and being beaten with an ugly stick. Toledo, Dayton, and Cleveland are all the same way. Detroit is a wreck. I've never been to Chicago or St. Louis, but I'd expect large parts of their cities to also be bad. Kansas City also had a lot of bad parts when I visited. Minneapolis seems to be one of the lone exceptions for big cities.
Why are the Midwestern metros a blighted out mess?
I thought it was pretty well understood that the Midwest has suffered from deindustrialization for several decades. Suburbanization and white flight had roles, too. Was education in Tennessee that bad?
What's your excuse for Memphis or all of Mississippi?
Are you paid to complain?
I mean seriously what are you expecting a city to be? Utopia? Gold plated streets?
Stainless steel houses? Absolutely no thugs within a 100 mile radius?
Based on another thread, he actually thinks the reason Midwesterners think he's a fool is his accent.
I thought it was pretty well understood that the Midwest has suffered from deindustrialization for several decades. Suburbanization and white flight had roles, too. Was education in Tennessee that bad?
What's your excuse for Memphis or all of Mississippi?
I stick up for the Midwest when its unfairly slammed by folks, no need to hit below the belt on the south. Poor Mississippi takes so much flack, its not nearly as bad as people say it is. Some very nice folks in MS. Yes Memphis has issues, but as a state we have nice cities overall. Nashville is a boomtown, Chattanooga and Knoxville are also nice livable cities.
I think a couple cities in the Midwest are responsible for the bad reputation that parts of the Midwest gets. Its really not fair, as I stated in a previous post there are plenty of nice Midwestern cities. Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Gary always are cited as examples of bad Midwest towns, but most Midwest towns look nothing like those places. Minneapolis is a great city (other than weather), Ann Arbor Michigan is 50 miles from Detroit and its a great small city. People have run down Indianapolis, but when I was there I thought it was a reasonably nice town.
Yeah, the Detroit metro is bigger, but if you compare metro to metro, you'll have to account for, as chkthankgod said, the University of Michigan, one of the best research institutions in the Midwest with 43,710 students.
Inch for inch and pound for pound, it's actually Indy that underperforms when it comes to higher education.
If Indianapolis underperforms when it comes to higher education then explain why Indianapolis is one of the 14 Life Science clusters in United States and Detroit is not?
If Indianapolis underperforms when it comes to higher education then explain why Indianapolis is one of the 14 Life Science clusters in United States and Detroit is not?
Because some 3rd party rating service (which you haven't linked to) determined that it's one of the best dozen or so places for one very specific academic tenet. Not exactly a "game changer," haha!
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