Steel Co., became industrial dinosaurs in the mid-twentieth century, made obsolete by technological advances and competition from Japan and Germany (whose plants mostly dated from the post- World War II period). Big steel companies dating from the nineteenth century, like Bethlehem Steel and U.S. Smaller industrial plants relocated to Mexico or to low-wage American Sun Belt states. During the 1970s and 1980s, rust belt cities experienced deepening unemployment, out-migration of population, loss of electoral votes, and an overall decline in industry and the economy. The term "Rust Belt" thus refers to a social crisis mostly affecting the cities. When the factories shut down, the cities lost corporate and property tax revenues as workers followed jobs to the suburbs or to other parts of the country. The crisis brought unemployment to workers, and increased police and welfare costs to cities at the same time that it signaled a decline in tax revenues. It was a structural crisis brought about by the aging of a generation of factories, the relative decline of the manufacturing sector, and increased global competition. This was more than a downward phase in the business cycle. Many of the factories and steel mills that produced the "American economic miracle" during and after World War II (1939 –1945) were padlocking their gates by the 1970s. Detroit emerged as the center of the American automobile industry, and became the home of the so-called Big 3 automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler.The term "Rust Belt" refers to an economic region in the northeast United States, roughly covering the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, a region known as the manufacturing heartland of the nation. Cleveland became the home of the Standard Oil Company in the 1860s, and was also a notable transportation hub. Buffalo became the largest grain port in the world. Pittsburgh was known as a center for steel manufacturing, dating all the way back to the U.S. Later on, General Motors built a plant in the city, as did Bethlehem Steel. Baltimore became a mecca for the production of metal and ship-building. In fact, it became one of the largest railroad centers in the country, and served as a base for the manufacture of freight and passenger railroad cars. Other important cities in what was once the focal point of American industry include Baltimore, Maryland Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Buffalo, New York Cleveland, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. cities that became part of America’s Factory, and later, part of the Rust Belt. The last of the old time rust belt steel mills that is still in operation today in Cleveland, Ohio.Ĭhicago was just one of the major U.S. The Illinois and Michigan Canal, which links Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River, helped make the Windy City the transportation center of Illinois by the 20 th century. For example, Chicago’s proximity to the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan enabled a steady flow of both goods and people. In addition, the area that is now referred to as the Rust Belt had a very good transportation network in the form of waterways. There was also a plentiful supply of labor in the region, as people immigrated from Europe and the U.S. The region became America’s industrial center, owing in large part to its natural resources, especially iron ore and coal. All these nicknames denoted the region’s importance for the U.S. In the 19 th and early-to-mid-20 th century, what is now known as the Rust Belt was defined by other nicknames, including Factory Belt, Steel Belt, or Manufacturing Belt. Ever since, the term “Rust Belt” has been used to refer to the once-prosperous industrial heartland of the U.S.
In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale called this declining region the rust bowl, though he was misquoted by the media, who thought that he said rust belt.
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