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The Rust Belt, formerly known as the Manufacturing Belt, is an area in the northeastern United States, roughly between Chicago and New York City, whose economy was formerly based largely on heavy industry, manufacturing, and associated industries. This area is roughly defined as comprising the northern sections of Indiana and Ohio; the Lower Peninsula of Michigan; the Lake Michigan (eastern) shoreline of Wisconsin; western and central New York; most of Pennsylvania; and the northern part of West Virginia, especially West Virginia's Northern Panhandle. Sometimes the adjacent portions of the Canadian province of Ontario (particularly the southern and southwestern parts) is included as well, giving the concept an international dimension.
Geographic Definition
Although Chicago was historically included in the rust belt during the 1980s and early 1990s, today it does not share the same characteristics as rust belt cities. Chicago is not only a primary manufacturing center, but also a leader in the financial, retail, transportation, and business sectors. Also, unlike rust belt cities, the last decade has shown population growth in Chicago.
On the other end, New York City is not included, due to its primary purpose as a financial and business center, but nearby cities in New Jersey such as Newark or Paterson often are included in the rust belt. The Boston to Washington corridor on the east coast known as BosWash is not usually included in the rust belt, although much of New Jersey and other cities such as Baltimore and Wilmington which lie within that corridor share important rust belt characteristics and are sometimes included.
So in essence, the rust belt can broadly be defined as the region beginning immediately west of the BosWash corridor and running west to Chicago, south to the beginnings of the coal mining regions of Appalachia, and north to the Great Lakes and into the manufacturing regions of Ontario.
History
The rust belt emerged as a center of manufacturing and heavy industry because of its location. Ready sources of coal just to the south in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky as well as in western and northeastern Pennsylvania; an immigration-driven population boom in the late 19th century; and easy access to shipping on the Great Lakes, and to the East Coast via canals, and later railroads. The region was one of the first in the United States to see railroad service, with some of the earliest railroads such as the Allegheny Portage Railroad located within the region. Coal, iron ore and other raw materials were shipped in from surrounding regions to cities such as Pittsburgh, which became a center of the steel industry. Chicago emerged as a transportation hub for the rust belt, because of its location connecting the Great Lakes with many railroad lines.
With the expansion of worldwide free trade agreements in the 1960s, it became far cheaper to produce heavy industrial goods such as steel in third world countries and import them into the United States in addition to hiring cheap foreign labor. Beginning with the recession of 1969-71, a dreary pattern emerged: In that downturn and in the ones that followed, manufacturing jobs disappeared, to be replaced by much lower-paying positions (mostly in the service industry) when the economy recovered. As a result, the economy of Rust Belt states was devastated as one factory after another was driven out of business and closed down.
In recent years, the big city populations in the Rust Belt are decreasing. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Detroit, Flint, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Erie, Buffalo, Akron, Toledo, Syracuse, Youngstown, Milwaukee and many more are some of the fastest-shrinking big cities in the US, despite attempts to revitalize their downtown areas. In the 2004 population estimate, it showed that the Rust Belt states were the weakest in growth, averaging less than 2% for new growth, compared to the large percentage of new growth in the Sun Belt. The region is called the Frost Belt or the Snowbelt as a way to more directly contrast the term Sun Belt, which is the fastest growing region of the US.
The areas are so called because of the unused, rusting machinery left over from the industrial production days, the rusting infrastructure (such as old highway overpasses), and because the salt used to de-ice roads during the area's heavy winters tends to rust automobiles quickly. The term "Rust Belt" is a neologism created by analogy to Sun Belt, Grain Belt and Bible Belt.
Trivia
Rust Belt Books, a used bookstore located in Buffalo, New York, has named itself for the region.
See also
References
- American Steel, Richard Preston (1991), Prentice Hall. ISBN 013029604X
- Images of the Rust Belt, James Jeffery Higgins (1999), Kent State University Press. ISBN 0873386264
- Industrial Sunset, Steven High (2003), University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802085288
- People and folks: gangs, crime, and the underclass in a rust- belt city, John Hagedorn and Perry Macon (1988), Lake View Press. ISBN 0941702219
- Reorganizing the Rust Belt, Steven Henry Lopez (2004), University of California Press. ISBN 0520235657
- Revival in the rust belt, Daniel R. Denison and Stuart L. Hill (1987), University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0879443227.
"Rust Belt"