Rust Belt
Rust refers to the deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector. The term gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1980s. Industry has been declining in the region, which was previously known as the industrial heartland of America, since the mid-20th century.
About Rust Belt in brief
Rust refers to the deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector. The term gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1980s. The Rust Belt begins in Central New York and traverses west through Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, northern Illinois, and ends in northeastern Wisconsin. Industry has been declining in the region, which was previously known as the industrial heartland of America, since the mid-20th century due to a variety of economic factors, such as the transfer of manufacturing overseas, increased automation, and the decline of the US steel and coal industries. While some cities, towns, and communities have successfully managed to adapt by diversifying and or transforming their economies shifting focus towards sectors such as services, advanced manufacturing, and high-tech industries, etc. Others have not fared as well, experiencing economic distress with poverty and as a result declining populations. The extent to which a community may have been described as a Rust Belt depends on how great a role industrial industry has played in its local economy in the past and how it does now, as well as perceptions of the economic viability and living standards of the present day. At the center of this expanse lies an expanse of this mid-western United States stretching from northern Indiana and southern Michigan in the west to the Mississippi River in the east. This includes most of the most industrial cities of the past because of their vibrant industrial economies in their vibrant days.
It also includes the snow belt, the manufacturing belt, or the factory belt – because of the vibrant manufacturing economies of their past. The area was referred to as the Manufacturing Belt, Factory Belt, or Steel Belt as distinct from the agricultural Midwestern states forming the so-called Corn Belt and Great Plains states that are often called the \”breadbasket of America\”. The area for decades served as a magnet for immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Poland and Russia who provided the industrial facilities with inexpensive labor. After the transportation infrastructure linked the iron ore found in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan with the coal mined from Appalachian Mountains, the Steel Belt was born. Soon it developed into the Factory Belt with its great American manufacturing cities: Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, St. Louis, Johnstown, and Pittsburgh among others. The region was also hard hit by industrial decline during the same era. Cities struggling with these conditions shared several difficulties, including population loss,. lack of education, declining tax revenues, high unemployment and crime, drugs, swelling welfare rolls, deficit spending, and poor municipal credit ratings. The area has no precise boundaries, but many of the Rust Belt cities are located in the Great Lakes Megalopolis, including those in the New York, New Jersey, New England, and Illinois. It is also known as ‘The Rust Belt’ because of its vibrant industrial and consumer products industries.
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This page is based on the article Rust Belt published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
