Why do we talk about the Midwest and rust belt "losing" their manufacturing industry, when cities like New York, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles "lost" their manufacturing decades before?
Posted by MajesticBread9147@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 129 comments
tolgren@reddit
The big cities didn't depend on those for money.
JohnHenryMillerTime@reddit
Because those cities transitioned to something better whereas the Rust Belt cities just died.
Mayor__Defacto@reddit
It took quite some time to transition. NYC in the seventies was rough and destitute.
TheDeaconAscended@reddit
That was nothing to do with the transition and everything to do with high crime rates and changing demographics and throw in elevated levels of lead in everyone's system.
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
The mob was definitely pretty good about elevating the amount of lead in quite a few people's systems.
TheDeaconAscended@reddit
Wasn’t that earlier though like 1928 through 1932?
TheOneFreeEngineer@reddit
The mafia lived in NYC as the single biggest organized crime force until the late 90s where they were dismantled by the government cases against them, and replaced with the Russian mob which is still incredibly violent
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
My brothers high school g/f had an uncle who was prominently featured in a mob war and her dad is still alive so not that long ago.
nowhereman136@reddit
When you look at the statistics, NYC was only marginally worse than most other major cities. NYC gets the reputation for being the largest, so most overall crime, and for being the most media heavy, so most visible
Jdevers77@reddit
Yes, but that is not taking into account how much safer NYC was before that and has been since the mid 90s. NYC is BY FAR the safest large city in the US, if the top 30 cities in the country had the exact same crime rates as NYC the country would be more comparable to the EU.
HowardIsMyOprah@reddit
Say what you will about the mafia, but they ran a tight ship in their time
TheOneFreeEngineer@reddit
They didn’t, the Mafia is a direct cause of the decline of NYC and the rise of crime and drug addiction in the 1960s thru the 1980s. They were the ones largely importing drugs into NYC causing the heroin epidemic, running insurance scams by burning down buildings in the Bronx for insurance money, and bribing the cops to look the other way.
Jdevers77@reddit
NYC is substantially safer post mafia than before.
Kdog_123@reddit
No they didn’t they were the reason for a lot of crime.
Blog_Pope@reddit
They also enforced their our justice, maintaining a semblance of order.
but the rules could be arbitray, enforcement could be overdone and random, etc. Its heavily romanticized, the practical reality is it was not a "Tight ship"
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
San Diego (#8) has higher property crime rates, but lower violent crime rates, so i dunno about the 'by far' bit. Tho I'll accept a 'SD isn't a large city' argument
Jdevers77@reddit
By metro area population its number 18, so would qualify in my top 30. Still though, if the top 30 cities in the US were as safe as SD and NYC the same would apply,
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
Absolutely agreed. And both point to immigration as NOT being a crime driver.
belomina@reddit
Boston would like a word
Malekwerdz@reddit
Not a large city
Own-Distribution-193@reddit
Two words: Combat Zone.
nowhereman136@reddit
Oh for sure, crime was up in NYC between the 60s and 90s, but it was up everywhere.
QuietObserver75@reddit
Violent crime basically spiked around 1994 in the US and then began to decline. If you just look at NYC, it's pretty astonishing at how quickly it started to drop off.
freddbare@reddit
Crack was a solid business choice
MonkMajor5224@reddit
Either you're slingin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot
DankItchins@reddit
Narcotics are always a safe and stable investment.
braxtel@reddit
Depends on what you mean by "safe."
LunaBloom92@reddit
Yeah, people forget the big coastal cities had ugly transition years too. My uncle used to talk about old New York like it was a mess before finance and media fully took over. The difference is some cities found a new engine, while a lot of Rust Belt places were left waiting for the old one to come back.
anonymous_fart5@reddit
It's not great right now. A quarter of the city lives in poverty
HonestLemon25@reddit
Probably because a studio is $4000 a month
anonymous_fart5@reddit
And the median household income is less than 90k
Then_Shop_1978@reddit
The coastal cities had more diverse economies to fall back in when manufacturing left. Rust Belt places were basically one-trick ponies - when the factories closed, there wasn't much else keeping people around. Big difference between losing one industry when you have finance/tech/services versus losing the only major employer in town.
MyUsername2459@reddit
When you're a Company Town, and the company closes. . .you're gonna have a bad time.
A LOT of those Midwest cities were company towns for heavy industry of various sorts. When they closed or moved overseas, the economic engines of those towns came to a grinding halt. No jobs. No tax revenue. No future.
It took decades for them to start to recover, and a lot never really did.
anclwar@reddit
The neighborhood I live in in Philly was once a "company town" for a saw mill. If the owner of that company hadn't made a decision to relocate all his business to a tract of land that was eventually incorporated into the city infrastructure, the area probably wouldn't have survived the eventual closure of the mill. There are old towns outside of the city that you can tell were economically disadvantaged when the industry closed down and the people who could leave did so. Some have been able to transition, but others have had a harder time of it and to this day are not as desirable to live in.
We don't hear about them like we do with rust belt towns because they're surrounded by middle class economies. Even coal country doesn't get brought up much, because a lot of those towns are able to keep a healthy tourism economy thanks to having "quaint" main streets and pretty Fall attractions.
MyUsername2459@reddit
A lot of Eastern Kentucky was company towns for coal mines that closed decades ago. . .and never recovered. The heart was ripped out of the local economy, poverty took hold, and the kids (especially the bright and talented) moved away as they grew up.
There's slowly been rebuilding in some places as other businesses move in. . .but nothing major.
There's places in Kentucky that get brisk tourist traffic for the quaint main streets, nice tourist attractions, really nice beautiful state parks and our horse and bourbon industries. . .but those aren't in the Appalachian part of Eastern Kentucky that got ripped apart by the coal industry closing down.
recoveringleft@reddit
And those that belt people became trump supporters. If Bernie were to be elected he would've at least found some relief for them
FrequentTopic446@reddit
Yup, I went to school in Boston and worked a co-op during it in Lyn, mass and it had a rep for being Lynn Lynn the city of sin like 20-30 years before I worked there (in aerospace, first American jet engine was designed there) and by the time I was there it was a commuter ghost town from Boston with Boston wholly shifting to education and finance at that point
doctor-rumack@reddit
Lynn is a gentrification anomaly in the Boston area. It has some decent waterfront areas, but it still carries the "city of sin" stigma. It’s not quite Lawrence or Brockton, but it does still elicit a "eww, you live in Lynn?" reaction from people. I thought by now that developers would see it for potential revitalization (and exploitation) but it hasn’t really happened yet.
Tooch10@reddit
What's Lowell like now? I remember that documentary about the crack addicts and it town seemed somewhat depressed but that was 30 years ago
LABELyourPHOTOS@reddit
It's still very working class but pretty decent. Crime is down and it's well, has a crime rate 3x lower than a place like Wichita.
The majority of the city are new residents of the US so there's always some growing pains with new immigrants but if I were investing I feel like both Lowell and Springfield are good spots.
Things are looking up, I think.
BigPapaPaegan@reddit
Why use Lynn when Swampscott is right there, ya know?
Ok_Buy_9703@reddit
Swampstink more like it. My wife's mom's family are in Revere.
FrequentTopic446@reddit
I’m talking about 2013, I love to hear it’s improved and rebounded since then. I’m not a fan of any small town dying across the states, just speak what I observe honestly is all
elena_ct@reddit
Today, Lynn is very expensive. The working class people from there most likely have moved out.
Klutzy-Comment6897@reddit
Better. 🤡🤣
27eelsinatrenchcoat@reddit
Yea I wouldn't say things like finance are better than manufacturing. IMO a bunch of good paying jobs are waaaay better than a few great paying jobs.
But they were better suited to the times. A series of policy choices by Republicans and third way Democrats made segments of the US manufacturing economy untenable. Anti unionism made sure the remaining jobs didn't pay as well.
I wholeheartedly believe that the US and the world would be in a much better place instead of it's current state of crumbling if we'd made different policy choices, but we didn't. So when these shifts were happening, it was better to be focused on finance, tech, etc.
MetalEnthusiast83@reddit
Yeah making 100k working 40 hours in a climate controlled office is actually a better living than working in a factory 80 hours a week for 15 bucks an hour.
Juicey_J_Hammerman@reddit
All of those other cities are also located either on the coast and/or at the heart of major transportation networks like railroads, so it’s inherently easier and often cheaper to ship goods and people in and out of those places then others.
JPflyer6@reddit
Cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh etc...were one industry focused cities whereas the others had more diversified industry. When the steel industry tanked, it happened more or less in a few years and the cities had no time to cast nets into other areas. Without jobs, infrastructure fails, buildings go empty (a lot of Pittsburgh's infrastructure and buildings were custom made to support steel and there was no repurposing possible), and people leave. The cities, for a long time, had nothing to offer to retain workers.
MajesticBread9147@reddit (OP)
Pittsburgh was undiversified? I always thought Pittsburg was like a smaller Boston because of how influential Pitt and CMU is, and how big tech/biotech and healthcare opportunities they have for a small city.
I know a guy that either went to undergrad and stayed there a few years after graduating or got recruited right after he graduated, I can't quite remember, but that's what he said the economy was like.
JPflyer6@reddit
what you think of Pittsburgh now, is NOTHING like what is was from 1870-1990, After 1980 the city was in freefall as steel closed up shop in a matter of years. Pittsburgh in the 1990's was dilapidated and desolate but it has had a slow by effective and really dramatic transformation when you compare it to Detroit and Cleveland. The economic bottom of the single industry issue really happened after 2001-2002. I lived there but left as i just felt hopeless but, came back in 2017 as it really had transformed. When Highmark and UPMC started to really invest in the city around 2005, I think that's when I thought...yeah, it could get better. It's one of the most livable small big cities in the USA in my opinion
Past_Worker_8262@reddit
I was gonna say; it is pretty nice now. I grew up in both Pittsburgh and Boston. Pittsburgh is a lot better now. You can still see the scars though.
JPflyer6@reddit
I feel grateful to call it home and I'm glad the scars are still there. The history of Pittsburgh need not be forgotten and I hope people don't remove their"Pittsburgh potties" and all the other things that remind us that the city helped build America
Zenthane@reddit
Pittsburg is one of the few places outside of where I live now (Milwaukee) that I would live without a second thought and I've only visited it once. Great city.
KoalaGrunt0311@reddit
It's also important to add that USX took a scorched earth tactic after the strike in the 80s. They not only closed mills, but they demolished them which prevented them from being repurposed into something else. When ALCOA closed their facility outside of Pittsburgh, their infrastructure left behind was able to become a base for an industrial park for smaller businesses to be able to regrow the economic foundation.
There's also a tipping point that has to be reached before things like the financial sector and other intangible industries can be an economic base for a region rather than an economic supplement. Manufacturing is still one of the better ways for an economic region to bring money into an area, rather than simply rotating money within the region.
KoalaGrunt0311@reddit
The entire country's industrial base was moved through Pittsburgh at one point in time--throughout most of the 1900s, Pittsburgh factories were the prime producers of steel (USX), aluminum (ALCOA), and glass (PPG).
A lot of the rust belt creation was in the 80s as Asian imports decimated prices. What you see in Pittsburgh now wouldn't be possible without having the universities as a base to grow from, attracting brains and youth, but that is also after decades of the city's active encouragement of growth in the health and technology sectors to replace the loss of the manufacturing. Nearly a third of Pittsburgh's real estate value is tax exempt because of this.
C0NDOR1@reddit
Because those cities had diverse industries to replace manufacturing with.
TEG24601@reddit
Because large cities did not typically rely on a single industry to provide decent jobs. They had a mix of decent jobs, and manufacturing was one small part. The issue in many mid-west communities is that manufacturing was the majority employer, and they rarely have anything to fall back to. They don't have the infrastructure for tech, don't have much going for it to be a boon for tourists, and being a rest stop on a highway can only go so far... not to mention, having family in many town like this, the people who are there don't seem to want to make any changes to find a solution and would rather complain.
M1sfit_Jammer@reddit
Because you talk about those cities means you probably never heard of cities like....
Lexington, NE.... population 10k... They had a meat packing plant in town that employed 3200 people, nearly 1/3 in the city worked at that plant. Now it's closed.
HoustonPastafarian@reddit
Anyone that wants to try to understand the economic change that happened to the rural midwest would do well to look at meat packing. My dad ran packing plants in that time period across Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and Ohio.
In 1981 starting wages at his plant was $10/hour, which would be about $36/hour today. Plus good benefits and vacation. For someone that didn't even need to graduate from high school.
In the 1980s there were a lot of consolidations and bankruptcies. There were leveraged buyouts of the packing companies where a lot of profit was extracted from the businesses and they were saddled with debt. Those profits that left were not reinvested into the packing plants, which at that time needed updates (many were built from about 1920-1940). They simply folded. Contrary to a lot of narratives, it wasn't the packing companies and company management that took all the money, most ended up with investors who had no lasting interest in the business and left when the profit was extracted).
So who bought the carcasses of these companies? Today Smithfield Foods is the largest pork processor in the United States, it's owned by the Chinese. They weren't so much interested in profits as the technology (while it doesn't get a lot of press because it isn't sexy, American ag technology is the best in the world and the Chinese wanted it, they also produce a lot of pork and have a large population to feed).
A lot of political angst in these regions has come from a perception that they were robbed and nobody cared.
To be fair (looking at the other side of the coin), the changes did drive a lot of efficiency - the companies that made it needed to to survive. American food prices are far lower than anywhere else in the world, and this is part of the reason why.
Sir_Alexander_Dane@reddit
I've checked Zillow and prices on housing haven't dropped. They are delusional at this point. There is really nothing left without the packing plant.
M1sfit_Jammer@reddit
Check google earth… there is 2 major housing developments that were under construction. Probably under the impression that the plant there would provide reliable employment and thus help sell the houses…
That town is in for a rough couple years
bangbangracer@reddit
It's more like 1/3 worked for the plant, 1/3 worked in jobs related to the plant, and the other third didn't work for the plant, but were also reliant on the local economy being supported by the plant.
Mayor__Defacto@reddit
More like 2/3rds considering that some are children and others are elderly.
SkiMonkey98@reddit
And the last third probably worked selling groceries to the factory workers and fixing their cars and houses
TillPsychological351@reddit
Doesn't LA still have a lot of manufacturing?
ad-lapidem@reddit
It does, but mostly light manufacturing, especially fashion; LA is the top domestic manufacturing center for apparel, for example.
Heavy manufacturing has been largely driven out of the state by costs since the 80s; it's hard to believe LA was once the second largest auto manufacturing region in the country and the heart of the aerospace industry. But even in its heydey, the image of Los Angeles was never about its industrial output, unlike a Pittsburgh or an Akron.
Altaira99@reddit
With population decline worldwide, I think we will see a lot more of this. If the US would quit having white panic over immigration we could keep pretty stable. In other parts of the world that aren't getting too hot to be habitable, I think you will see enclaves in places where agriculture makes sense and there is potable water. It's going to be interesting to see how robotics plays into this.
Danibear285@reddit
Because we have this thing called “empathy”
OG_Karate_Monkey@reddit
Because unlike so many places in the “rust belt” something replaced it economically.
Charlesinrichmond@reddit
came here to say this. We are talking about LA losing the entertainment industry now
CockroachNo2540@reddit
Those cities were generally more diversified than the rust belt cities, so while they did suffer from manufacturing decreases, it wasn’t as acute as the rust belt.
LomentMomentum@reddit
Because midwestern and Rust Belt cities’ identities, and in many cases reasons for existence, were as manufacturing hubs. The other cities, while having lost manufacturing, were never as industrial.
Broad_Tie9383@reddit
Very curious about the industry in DC...I've lived in this area for a while and government work is pretty much our identity.
PeanutterButter101@reddit
And that's slowly being chipped away by the current conflict, some people in my condominium have been moving to other parts of the country for work, one is even selling at a loss.
Tjtod@reddit
Some government industry. Washington Navy Yard was the largest naval ordnance plant in the world. Among other things they made torpedoes and large naval artillery.
InspiredNameHere@reddit
Technically, government work has to be DCs bread and butter.
They arent legally their own state for that reason.
SabresBills69@reddit
in metro DC you have govt contracting and they have a tech industry in cell phone and internet. most of the early cell phone and internet related companies were in metro dc
Juicey_J_Hammerman@reddit
There’s also geographical and local characteristic advantages that somewhat insulate those cities as well:
NYC, Boston and Philadelphia have all been around since the 1600’s and have seen literal centuries of ups and downs and growth changes gave them a 200+ year head start on being major cultural and institutional centers.
Chicago is newer but is in a prime location since it can still ship goods out via the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River via canals, and is a major railroad hub.
Los Angeles is even newer (as a large modern city), but is home to the major cargo/shipping hub on the west coast (Port of LA/Long Beach) and is still a major aerospace manufacturing center and oil town - and don’t forget Hollywood as a major employer and cultural asset as well.
DC was a planned city on swampland, but is the head of the Federal government and home to many agencies and department offices directly, which (usually) is fairly stable and “recession proof” in terms of the job base of most of the city.
PrincebyChappelle@reddit
LA is incompletely unknown for its manufacturing, but: (pardon the Gemini cut and paste)
Top 10 U.S. Counties by Manufacturing Employment
The largest absolute numbers of manufacturing jobs are clustered in highly populous urban centers:
Los Angeles County, CA: ~300,000+ employees
Harris County, TX (Houston): ~177,000 employees
Cook County, IL (Chicago): ~177,000 employees
Orange County, CA: ~100,000+ employees
Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix): ~100,000+ employees
Dallas County, TX: ~100,000+ employees
Santa Clara County, CA (Silicon Valley): ~100,000+ employees
San Diego County, CA: ~100,000+ employees
PeanutterButter101@reddit
The difference is that Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities tend to have diverse economies especially if they're along the East Coast or West Coast. Cities that have 1 or 2 noteworthy industries are more susceptible to ruin if their industry goes bust, Washington, DC is kind of experiencing that right now.
Tommy_Wisseau_burner@reddit
Because those cities have more economic diversity that didn’t immediately cripple the local economy
forestinpark@reddit
Cause thise places got something else to keep economy thriving, while rust belt went into "dey drka our dzobs" (south park)
blipsman@reddit
Big cities like New York and Chicago have diverse economies and as manufacturing left, new jobs appeared. These cities modernized with the times. And in fact much of the manufacturing may have left the center city but remained within the metro area and its economy.
Many “rust belt” cities were all about manufacturing, so when that left there was little left to support residents. Even the jobs not directly tied to manufacturing were supported by the incomes manufacturing paid.
JONOV@reddit
Because they weren’t reliant on manufacturing. It was a part of the economy, not the whole economy. NYC and Chicago have large finance sectors and other industries. DC is the seat of the federal government. I can’t speak as much to Philly and LA but it isn’t a stretch to say they have other legs on their economic stool.
Sufficient-Heart5567@reddit
Pandering to Rustbelt dipshits. 2030 can't come quickly enough!
P00PooKitty@reddit
The rust belt cities often took the industry FROM the northeast cities too, so it’s not karma but it’s s karma esque
tacobellbandit@reddit
I live in Pittsburgh and obviously we got left behind when steel wasn’t as prominent, but Pittsburgh leaned into technology and other industries. Go outside the city though and there’s towns that have basically succumbed to irrelevancy despite being prominent places back in the day.
My grandmother in the town I lived, took a piece of carpet from her previous employer at a club where JFK walked on. Now imagining the president here for anything other than maybe using a local townhall or field for a rally is absurd. The town is still nice, and not horrible due to its historic relevance, but some towns weren’t as lucky
Absentrando@reddit
These cities are geographically situated in areas that allow other industries to develop or benefit from spillover economic activities from larger economic hubs. Chicago is a rust belt city but managed better than others for this reason
Ok_Orchid1004@reddit
Because they are still losing.
Eudaimonics@reddit
Eh, most of the larger cities have fully transitioned to a white collared economy.
Eudaimonics@reddit
The funny thing is that the rust belt still manufactures A LOT of things.
What nobody talks about is how automation decimated just as many if not more jobs than globalization.
Like I live in Buffalo where the local Ford Plant has operated for more than a 100 years. They employ hundreds of workers, but decades ago they employed thousands. The actual output hasn’t changed much.
Like 30% of the workforce still works in manufacturing or trades in Buffalo. It’s still a huge sector even as office jobs have been on the rise and now make up 50% of the workforce still work force.
Rtn2NYC@reddit
There is an American movie called Tommy Boy. It’s a comedy (and a good one) but it explains very well what happened and a bit about how.
bangbangracer@reddit
The cities transitioned into white collar work. These small towns just died.
Dan2Duper@reddit
Industry left the middle of the country due to trade deals. The coasts benefitted because now goods had to be imported and ports are located there.
rileyoneill@reddit
I think its the scale. The manufacturing along the Great Lakes at its peak was like a third of total global manufacturing. The manufacturing elsewhere you mentioned was much smaller and not as interconnected. Globalization was not much of a thing. Especially not with the hyper efficient containerized global supply chains that we have built over the last few decades.
Los Angeles largely pivoted to other things (but still manufactures). NYC is still mostly finance and things other than manufacturing, Chicago is on the same Great Lakes Network.
sarcasticorange@reddit
Just to add on... NY and LA are and were the largest ports in the US and Chicago is the primary logistics hub for the central US.
LA's biggest product has always been entertainment.
gruntharvester92@reddit
Places like Detroit never made a comeback and have long since been abandoned.
Flint, Saginaw & Detroit all need to burn to the ground and a nature preserve planted in its place.
The cities have all been hollowed out. Almost all the big companies have closed or moved out of the city proper. The cities charge high tax rate conpared to the surrounding suburbs. Roads are shit. High crime rate. Etc etc etc.
SOMTAWS6@reddit
You’re so far out of touch I don’t even know where to begin.
gruntharvester92@reddit
Try NAFTA
osteologation@reddit
All 3 of those cities are nicer than they were 20 years ago.
Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit
Yea but none of them are as nice as they were 60 years ago.
Part of Detroit is nice, but the rest of it is still Detroit. There are still burned down houses, abandoned warehouses...you know, Detroit shit. (Excluding suburbs)
Flint and Saginaw are both only slightly less shitty then they were not so long ago. Let's not pretend they are both nice places that have completely rebounded and are flourishing, because they really aren't.
osteologation@reddit
I was being glass half full. I went to Miller rd in flint a year or two ago for the first time in like 10 or 15 years and was surprised at it being nicer than I remembered lol. It’s nicer but still not nice I guess is what I should’ve said. I goto Saginaw regularly as it’s relatively close to me and I feel better about it than I used to though we still refer to it as the saganasty.
RupeThereItIs@reddit
Haven't been to Saginaw in ages, but Flint is still pretty rough.
As are Benton Harbor and Pontiac (not mentioned).
Detroit is a poster child for rebound over the last decade and a half since the bankruptcy, but still has a long way to go.
Klutzy-Comment6897@reddit
Because the Midwest is real America.
BroughtBagLunchSmart@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7im5LT09a0
MajesticBread9147@reddit (OP)
How many of them sent delegations to the constitutional convention?
Crayshack@reddit
The cities you've listed all had other industries take over for manufacturing as the backbone of the local economy. By the time they lost their manufacturing (if they ever had it in the first place), they had a diversified economy that didn't really care. Notably, except for DC, those are all major shipping hubs with sizable ports, even if that'snot necessarily the biggest industry for each of them. DC is heavy propped up by federal employees and contractors, which makes the local economy effectively tied to national industry instead of local industry.
SOMTAWS6@reddit
I work in manufacturing in Metro Detroit. I assume it not what it was between the 40s and 60s, but I could use about 20 more of me to do my job and actually cover all of the manufacturing going on here. The Rouge is cranking out more cars (trucks) than ever before, even.
KoalaGrunt0311@reddit
Those cities may now have less actual manufacturing industry, but it's not their primary means of an economy. They all have a large economy based on intangible production, like the financial sector, government, tourism, and movie production.
In comparison to say, Pittsburgh which felt a shock of the reduction in steel manufacturing in the 80s, it took the city a couple decades to transition strengthening the economy based on healthcare and technology, heavily influenced and supported by the higher education institutions already in place.
A majority of rust belt towns haven't had an alternative economy base to build, and some of the factories were huge anchors employing thousands of workers directly with jobs much greater than minimum wage, which then supported a lot of other service industry jobs. Look at Detroit with the reduction of the automotive industry--the actual automotive plants were one thing, but they also established auto parts suppliers and other accessories that have been reduced.
enigmanaught@reddit
You can see this happen on a micro scale when a large anchor pulls out of a car centric shopping center, especially if it’s a grocery store. All the smaller places lose customers because it’s not convenient to go there just for that small shop. It’s something you do because “hey, we’re already here getting groceries”.
SabresBills69@reddit
fatal logical flaw—— thise cities had other things.
nyc is an international city with financial markets, large arts/ entertainment area, corp HQ, international relations jobs.
dc is fed capital and you have fed contractors, they also have a tech hub ( internet and cell phone)
LA has corporate HQ, Hollywood in TV and movie and entertainment industries.they still are a big shipping port. Broader Southern California has a large military footprint so they have fed contracting jobs and R&D work around that. They have strong education and healthcare industries.
the other cities….buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh were heavy invested in steel manufacturing and auto parts manufacturing. When these industries died it took them a long time to change. All 3 have very strong university medical schools, universities, and very good hospitals. It’s harder to attract companies to move there.
kilertree@reddit
New York, Philadelphia and Chicago are apart of the rust belt.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
Both Philadelphia and Chicago are considered part of the Rust Belt.
Philadelphia in particular saw rapid deline from the 1950s on and a stagnant economy. It's only been the last 30 or so years that things have recovered. The city's population is still lower than it was at it's peak around 1950.
Chicago redeveloped earlier, but largely because it's decline started earlier, in the 1920s rather than the 50s and 60s.
stereoroid@reddit
They mean heavy manufacturing, like cars, iron & steel, chemicals etc. as well as resource extraction like coal. The cities themselves never had those, but they could have been nearby e.g. Gary, Indiana is not far from Chicago.
MajesticBread9147@reddit (OP)
They absolutely did make cars in the northeast, especially in the suburbs and small towns around major cities.
They made cars in Baltimore, Edison, NJ, multiple in the Boston suburbs, Newark, Delaware, Linden, NJ, Chester Pennsylvania.
And they still have heavy manufacturing. McLaren has a finishing center in Baltimore.
New Jersey has so much heavy industry even today that they still have a "Chemical Coast" across the river from New York City.
Most East Coast cities are on or near major ports so they made steel and built ships in Staten Island, Baltimore County although these are both pretty suburban areas.
But even Brooklyn had steel mills and shipyards.
Lucky-Paperclip-1@reddit
This is why New Yorkers think of New Jersey as stinky. We pass through the industrial / petrochemical area right away when we're on the Turnpike going south.
The "Garden State" parts of New Jersey are further out from there.
MajesticBread9147@reddit (OP)
New Jersey gets too much hate honestly. Median incomes and public schools slightly behind Massachusetts yet homes are much cheaper.
Hoboken, Jersey City, and even places as far out as Newark and Paterson are some of the most walkable and transit friendly small cities in the country, all while being a stones throw from Manhattan.
Although I found Jersey City a bit soulless, it reminded me of the part of my hometown that's the last transit stop before you cross the Potomac into DC. Just a more polished and corporate version of their bigger neighbor for people who want to pay the same in rent to live in a place with slightly lower taxes but farther from both work, fun, and poor people they're scared of 😅
dcgrey@reddit
Just to define terms: the Rust Belt doesn’t refer primarily to cities. It’s a multistate region of countless towns that relied on steel manufacturing and downstream industries. The cities you mention lie in regions that had similar experiences when the industry they relied on vanished, but there wasn’t a pithy name like “Rust Belt” when, say, New England mills closed. It took great places like Lowell, Massachusetts, a century to recover.
thickjamaicanuncle@reddit
We pivoted to a tech, services, finance etc. economy
MajesticBread9147@reddit (OP)
A... Chrome factory?
Like they did electroplating?
thickjamaicanuncle@reddit
My bad. There were hella steel mills there, one of which was called Chrome.
Lucky-Paperclip-1@reddit
Chrome, like the browser? /s
Gamer_Grease@reddit
Those cities generally had and have more diverse economies, so that losing one sector did not destroy them so completely.
According-Couple2744@reddit
Chicago and Philadelphia still have manufacturing. NY has the financial industry. LA has the entertainment industry. DC has the political class. Philadelphia still has a pharmaceutical, biotech and food processing industries. Chicago is a hub for logistics and transportation and still maintains a manufacturing industry in sheet metal and fabricated metal products.
SubstantialSeesaw374@reddit
Same reason nobody is still talking about 1900s racism against the Irish.
Survive, adapt, overcome.
Western-Finding-368@reddit
Because…that’s how it played out? I’m not sure what would be confusing about that.
PopcornyColonel@reddit
"Why is it that way?"
"Because it's that way, dummy."
🙄
Alternative-Put-3932@reddit
Because smaller towns and cities exist and their economies relied on local manufacturing businesses for employment. Once manufacturing collapsed smaller towns lost all of their good jobs in those areas. Large cities have insurance against economic collapse by not having all of their eggs in 1 basket just due to population.