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I'm sure there are numerous smaller regions and cities across the sunbelt that have a rustbelt vibe.
The growth of the sunbelt is incredibly isolated to specific large metros and maybe some industry/company towns (e.g. oil). Most rural areas in America are in decline, even in the south. This includes former manufacturing towns.
For example, Charlotte, NC is booming right now, but just 30 mins away in Gastonia, there are real rustbelt vibes.
I wouldn't say Gastonia has rustbelt vibes, but it is evident that it was a former textile town that hasn't quite seen the same level of development as its other peers in the metro, namely Concord and Rock Hill. Even so, it is still located in a booming metro and no such metro has growth and development evenly distributed throughout. It has also begun to experience more growth and development as the western side of the metro gains more attention as a lower COL area compared to other parts.
Do they though? I'm not so sure. I think if Grand rapids tourism board tried to say "come live in the Sunbelt" in their marketing materials, it would be the laughing stock of the internet
I kind of have to agree with this. Mostly because as much as I love Grand Rapids, I always think of it more as a snowbelt city, not a sunbelt city.
Winter/Lake effect snow in that area is no joke.
I agree that GR is a growing/vibrant city, but......no. Can't agree with sunbelt as a descriptor.
More Sunbelt I would say. It doesn't have enough baggage to be a rust belt city. It's also growing too fast and is considered too desirable by the general population to be rust belt.
We are not sunbelt at all. "Growing fast" isn't exclusive to the sunbelt. Saint Paul does have a "rust belt" undertone to it, as do certain areas of Minneapolis, but we're certainly not that, either.
They aren't out of place they just developed during different periods with different histories. New Orleans doesn't feel out of place because it's old and in the south, neither does Houston.
In some ways portions of the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Beaumont/Port Arthur TX resemble the old Rust Belt at its heyday at least from a social/economic standpoint in that heavy industry and manufacturing are still booming in these cities and there is still a healthy job market for American blue collar workers. Every time I drive across the old Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge (US 190) past the refineries and plants I think this is what New Jersey or Cleveland looks like. Except our plants are still operational and employing a lot of people.
New Orleans's abandoned neighbors is due to Katrina and totally different than economic forces. There's still a lot of heavy industry in New Orleans as well.
Birmingham is probably the closest thing in the Deep South to a major Rust Belt city though its doing better with a more diversified economy than many other places. Its been affected the same time as Pittsburgh and Cleveland when unfair trade agreements decimated the US steel industry. Some smaller towns in the South did lose a lot of textile mills to China and Latin America. We still grow cotton of course but the clothes are no longer made nearby. The Mississippi Delta for example has suffered from this trend.
In some ways portions of the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Beaumont/Port Arthur TX resemble the old Rust Belt at its heyday at least from a social/economic standpoint in that heavy industry and manufacturing are still booming in these cities and there is still a healthy job market for American blue collar workers. Every time I drive across the old Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge (US 190) past the refineries and plants I think this is what New Jersey or Cleveland looks like. Except our plants are still operational and employing a lot of people.
New Orleans's abandoned neighbors is due to Katrina and totally different than economic forces. There's still a lot of heavy industry in New Orleans as well.
Birmingham is probably the closest thing in the Deep South to a major Rust Belt city though its doing better with a more diversified economy than many other places. Its been affected the same time as Pittsburgh and Cleveland when unfair trade agreements decimated the US steel industry. Some smaller towns in the South did lose a lot of textile mills to China and Latin America. We still grow cotton of course but the clothes are no longer made nearby. The Mississippi Delta for example has suffered from this trend.
There are still operational oil refineries in NJ that employ a lot of people.
If the Sunbelt is defined as the entire southern third of the nation then New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama don't share in the massive growth you see in the Carolinas, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, etc. I'm not sure if Nashville is a Sunbelt city but its still in the South though not as warm climactically.
New Orleans has never declined (not even with Katrina which did shift population around and contribute to the growth of the Northshore) but it feels somewhat left behind as its not as prominent as it once was before the 1950s, it used to be the most prominent city in the South but its now fallen behind Atlanta, Charlotte, many Florida cities, and the NC Triangle. New Orleans remains one of the few blue collar cities in the South, whereas the rest of the Sunbelt cities like Charlotte have a white collar vibe. NO's biggest industry remains the oil and gas industry and petrochemical manufacturing, an industry that hasn't been offshored to the extent of steel. We do fear the green new deal here in Louisiana and are afraid it may do to us what the war on coal did to Appalachia.
Washington DC is interesting since the metro area is booming and Northern Virginia in particular physically resembles Charlotte and Atlanta a lot more than Northeast cities like Philadelphia or New York or even Baltimore. Usually when movies use a stand in for NOVA its Charlotte, Atlanta, or Houston. However the culture is very Northeastern there and the DC area weather-wise is definitely Rust Belt like with its long dreary winters. Its close neighbors like Baltimore and Cumberland MD are Rust Belt cities while its still quite a distance to where the Sunbelt begins. (Richmond VA is probably also too cold to be Sunbelt.)
Charleston and Huntington WV are culturally more Southern than Northern (a different kind of South than Louisiana or South Carolina but Southern nonetheless) but do have a definite Rust Belt vibe to them. Southern West Virginia is a very unique place in many ways.
If the Sunbelt is defined as the entire southern third of the nation then New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama don't share in the massive growth you see in the Carolinas, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, etc. I'm not sure if Nashville is a Sunbelt city but its still in the South though not as warm climactically.
Generally, the Sun Belt is defined as the 36th parallel southward. That does leave out Nashville and Las Vegas proper, but barely - parts of Clark County are in the Sun Belt, and Murfreesboro is in the Sun Belt and is the other major/principal city of Nashville's metro area.
Also, I have to disagree with Nashville not being warm enough climatically to have a Sun Belt feel. It's barely colder than Oklahoma City and parts of central Arkansas, and on average winter nights it actually isn't colder than those regions. It also has winters similar to Asheville but with considerably hotter summers. Sure, it is colder than most of the Sun Belt west apart from Albuquerque and Flagstaff, as well as the deeper south, but it's not unusual for the northeastern Sun Belt.
Knoxville, which has a very similar climate to Nashville, has some healthy/unprotected Needle Palms that are almost 6 decades old and even a younger specimen at the UT gardens themselves. Nashville itself also has had many Southern Magnolias since the 1930s. For that matter, parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas with similar winter nights also have native Dwarf Palmettos, along with Escarpment Live Oak (a little-known hardier cousin of the coastal species) in the case of Oklahoma. The climate of most of these areas is not only Cfa under Koppen but also Cf under Trewartha, even if just barely the latter.
Birmingham is probably the closest thing in the Deep South to a major Rust Belt city though its doing better with a more diversified economy than many other places. Its been affected the same time as Pittsburgh and Cleveland when unfair trade agreements decimated the US steel industry.
Birmingham actually transitioned successfully in the 70s-80s from an economy with steel production as a major driver to one driven by banking, higher education, and healthcare.
The decimation of the U.S. steel industry was much more about technological changes. Just because you're committed to advancing a certain political narrative in practically all of your posts doesn't mean that the record shouldn't be set straight whenever you do.
In the Midwest, once you get toward the Plains (which I consider to be part of Midwest), the cities tend to get less Rust Belty. For example I would never include Omaha, Lincoln, Des Moines or Kansas City in the Rust Belt while St. Louis is borderline Rust Belt. Of the "eastern" Midwest, Columbus definitely is the city that stands out as non-Rust Belt.
But Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania are the three states that I'd say are entirely in the Rust Belt.
So, you've traveled through all 3 states and came up with that conclusion? That's like me traveling in some states in South and saying that everybody is a hick or a simpleton. Also, if you would travel more there some Rust Belt (I can't stand that term) type of areas in the South.
Saratoga County north of Albany has been one of the fastest growing counties in NY State and has places like Clifton Park, Malta and Halfmoon that have seen a lot of growth in recent years.
There are other towns like these mentioned in other parts of the state as well.
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