The rust belt has been losing population for two decades while the south and southwest have been gaining.
The usual reason given is the fact that heavy industry left the region and there were “no jobs”.
There is something wrong with this explanation, but first some stats.
This graphic:
Chart shows how population has shifted from Cleveland. One could show similar data for Buffalo, Rochester or many other such urban centers. Detroit is an especially sad case with population down to about half of its peak.
So, people move to Arizona or New Mexico, for “jobs”. What jobs? Before people moved there the regions were desert. It’s still desert. Manufacturing didn’t relocate to these regions the way some of it did in a prior period when industries moved to the south to escape unions.
So the influx of people has to have created jobs. Of course a rising population needs services and the exurban sprawl has fueled work in the building trades, but what else?
Many of the new jobs must be in the knowledge industries. These don’t require much in the way of infrastructure, unlike steel or autos. They don’t need railroads or nearby suppliers or even supplies of water or other resources. All they need are some office buildings and a telecommunications network.
Well Cleveland has office buildings and a telecommunications network. It is just easy to build a new building in Cleveland as in Phoenix (although labor rates may be cheaper in Arizona). In addition to the lack of jobs, people cite the nice climate. But Phoenix doesn’t have a “nice” climate. It’s in the desert and no one goes outside during the summer. How is this different than Cleveland where people don’t go outside during winter blizzards?
Cleveland also has rivers, trees and four seasons. Cleveland has lots of old, affordable housing which could be revived, or replaced. Perhaps this might cost slightly more than a new exurban McMansion, but perhaps not.
So why the shift from the rust belt? I don’t have the answer, but I suspect that the glib reasons usually given are only a small part of the picture. There have to be underlying government policies which are favoring the migration. These can range from implicit subsidies of new development through tax breaks to developers though favorable support of infrastructure development. The US will pay for a new superhighway to a housing development, but won’t pay for upgrading of roads in an existing city.
So has the migration just happened or have their been some deliberate policies put in place? What happens when the water situation gets critical? Will people then start to think about moving back to compact communities where they are not dependent on cars and cheap energy?
Shalom Robert,
I don’t think we can over emphasize the importance of air conditioning. There is a certain sameness in harsh Cleveland winters and harsh Phoenix summers, but I think most people are willing to tolerate heat associated with clear skies and cold associated with overcast skies.
B’shalom,
Jeff
So why don’t you move to Phoenix? Apparently climate isn’t everything.
I miss Cleveland! I grew up there and lived along the lakeshore suburbs on the west side until 4 years ago. I moved to NC when I got remarried.
Yes, the winters are long and dreary. But the NC summers are godawful and you’re right, I just stay inside for those 3 hellish months.
Cleveland has a vibrancy, a character that I miss like crazy. I miss the old four square houses, the majestic old estates, the tree lined streets, the lake breezes, pro sports, the orchestra, public transportation – so many things.
The horrible state of the Cleveland public schools has got to be addressed if people are going to move back into the city. Obviously there is a huge problem with white flight as those who can afford to move out into the suburbs did so long ago.
I’m torn about moving back someday, and winters are the only reason why. It might be a deal breaker for me because I suffer from seasonal depression and those winters are just too long and too consistently cloudy.
Who knows? Maybe with global warming….:)
I think you touch on two important (related) issues. The first is that many rust belt cities have large minority populations and the second is the poor quality of the schools.
I don’t know what to do about unacknowledged racism, but schools can be fixed by spending money. The property tax system that most places use to fund schools is very unfair. Poor communities which need the most help have the weakest tax base.
School funding should be at the state level and local communities should be able to add to that by means of local taxes. There should be a limit (say 20%) above the state level than could be raised by this means. This would prevent the state level from being too low since every community would want at least adequate funding. In both NY and NJ courts have ruled against the present school financing system, but the legislatures refuse to make the needed changes.
Perhaps the judges should start holding the legislators in contempt and throwing them in jail until they fix the problems.
I also think the creative use of abandoned land could revitalize inner cities. How about some urban farms using greenhouses and local people to run them and sell the produce?
We still don’t understand the dynamics of old US (the rust belt) vs new US (the sun belt).
Pittsburgh is an interesting case, they seem to have revitalized themselves with a combination of university growth and a focus on health services and biomedical research.
Pittsburgh is an interesting case, they seem to have revitalized themselves with a combination of university growth and a focus on health services and biomedical research.
You’ve hit on another key piece of the puzzle here – jobs in growing industries where a young person can expect to be able to move up the ladder career-wise and buy a house and support a family, or even just buy more of the finer things in life if not inclined to do the family thing.
For a city to grow, it has to have as many of the following as possible: affordable housing, growing industries, good schools (or else families will relocate away), at least a certain level of culture, not too much crime, reasonably good infrastructure, and reasonable taxes.
The rust belt lost the jobs, and schools and infrastructure went to pot. The unemployed turned to crime, and the officials trying to hold things together found themselves needing to raise taxes to fight these problems just as the tax base was moving south.
Outside Detroit we refer to the continual cloudy weather during the winter months as Permagray. I believe labor cost differences hurt our odds of recruiting new employers, or expansion by existing ones. Once starting down the slippery slope of population loss, it is real hard to turn a city or region of a state around.
The water thing, along with climate change is in my view a ticking time bomb for several large cities in the South West. I could be wrong here, but I don’t see the sustainability of these towns over the next two or three decades. If so that may have the effect of increasing the popularity of Great Lakes Cities. Hopefully we can preserve the fresh water we take for granted here in this region. I have a feeling, a whole bunch of our countrymen will be depending on it sooner that we can imagine now.