Why Call It “The Rust Belt”?

I’m open to other names for the region. But until there’s another name that’s as evocative as this one, I’m keeping it.

There’s a question I get every so often in social media – “why do you use the term “Rust Belt”?“ Usually it comes from people who live in the region, who dislike the term and wish for some kind of rebranding. I agree. But what’s better?

Before I discuss options, let’s talk about the term “Rust Belt” itself. There are many thoughts on the origin of the term. Many people cite the term gaining popularity in the 1970’s and 1980’s as manufacturing plants closed in the Northeastern and Midwestern cities. It was at that time when factories began their relocation to the South or Southwest (which would later earn the term “Sun Belt”) in search of lower labor costs and lower taxes. Anne Trubek, the founder of Belt Magazine in 2013 and an avid user of the term, says the term really became popular during the 1984 presidential election:

“It was largely created in 1984 by, of all people, Walter Mondale. At a campaign stop during the presidential election, Mondale made a speech to steelworkers at the LTV plant Cleveland in which he decried Reagan’s position on trade, particularly the lifting of quotas on steel imports, which had sent the industry into crisis. As he put it: “Reagan’s policies are turning our industrial Midwest into a rust bowl.”

The press tweaked Mondale’s dust bowl reference into “Rust Belt,” to make it play off the “Sun Belt,” another new term for an American region, this one coined in 1969 by Kevin Phillips in his book The New Republican Majority, to describe a happier set of shifting demographics and economic policies.

There is a sizable contingent — mainly baby boomers who remember the moment the term was coined — who consider it derogatory and strive to have it replaced (recent attempts to rebrand the region include the “Trust Belt” and the “Freshwater Region”). But the term sticks, resoundly trumping “America’s Heartland,” with its whiffs of nostalgia and rural idyll.”

This makes a lot of sense. If you talk to Boomer-aged people from the region, especially those employed in the manufacturing sector, the period from about 1968-1984 was the period when things changed dramatically for the industrial Midwest. Racial unrest in major cities, rapid growth in suburbia coupled with extensive decline in inner city neighborhoods, the loss of automotive and steel manufacturing jobs in cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis, and inflationary and recessionary cycles, culminating with the 1981-82 Recession, hit this region, however defined, particularly hard. How hard? There are Boomers who maintain that the 80’s recession was far worse on the Midwest than the Great Recession of 2007-09. And I believe them.

It was also around this time that general perceptions about the makeup of American geography and demographics was changing. I’d argue that prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the nation was still defined by a North/South split, with states as diverse as California and New York included with Midwestern states in the North. Southern states included the old Confederacy, with the most rural areas being referred to as the Deep South.

But the Southern migration that began shortly after World War II began to change that perception. Northerners (from the East Coast and Midwest) started heading southward in large numbers to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas. The influx of new blood pushed much of the insular and parochial (read: racist) culture into the background. Cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and many others took advantage of a changing economy and the sun’s appeal to rebrand themselves.

That’s when a new American demographic coalition began to emerge. The post-industrial East and West coasts became united, more or less, by their growing emphasis on knowledge industries. Technology, finance, media, higher education, and health care rapidly advanced the economies of the coasts. Domestic in-migration fueled the South’s and Southwest’s success, as people were attracted to lower costs of living and good climates. And I’d guess that the 1980’s is when it became evident that the Rust Belt/Industrial Midwest was on a very different path from the rest of the nation.

As for me, I’ve embraced “Rust Belt”. I find it extremely evocative; people immediately get images of closed factories and decaying ruins. Strangely, I don’t mind that. But I also find it to be a term roughly synonymous with the legend of the phoenix, the mythological bird that rises from the ashes of its deceased predecessor. I believe there’s a special power in seeing a place that’s been crushed by a changing economy, brought to its knees, becoming something else entirely. Roman London grew to a population close to 100,000 by 410 AD; after the Romans left Britain the city was virtually abandoned, and did not attain 100,000 people again until possibly the 1400’s. London did fine, and the cities of the Rust Belt will, too.

What would good options for a “Rust Belt” rebranding look like? Some of you may have seen my Five Midwests series, where I argue that there are five subregions that can lay claim to being in the Midwest – the North Woods, Lower Lakes, the Heartland, the Midland Valley and the Great Plains. Each subregion has its own unique history, economy, even dialects. The one subregion I initially called Lower Lakes is, to me, synonymous with “Rust Belt” – the parts of the southern Great Lakes that extends roughly from Syracuse, NY to Green Bay, WI, which you can see highlighted in light blue below:

There are some cities that aren’t included in the region that would get the “Rust Belt” tag: Pittsburgh, St. Louis, maybe the Twin Cities. But I think this captures the essence of the Rust Belt name. This also corresponds to the broad outlines of the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The five subregions above have an estimated 55-60 million people.

The Lower Lakes has the largest population share of any Midwest subregion, with an estimated 25-30 million. Its economy, culture and character is pretty distinct from the subregions around it; the North Woods rose to prominence via timber and the mining of copper and iron ore; the Heartland grew through agricultural production.

Other names have been tried for the Rust Belt/Lower Lakes/Industrial Midwest. North Coast, Fresh Coast and Third Coast are names I’ve heard, but each one seems more like an attempt to link with the East and West coasts. The coast theme diminishes this subregion in comparison. As big as the Great Lakes are, few people who live near oceans are able to accept that cities on the Great Lakes sit on coasts.

And that might be the reason the Rust Belt sticks as a name, rather than any Great Lakes or coast-themed name. Americans understand the role of manufacturing in the growth of America, even if they don’t understand the importance of the Great Lakes in making the region the hub of American manufacturing. I’d prefer something else, but I’m sure that won’t happen until there’s sustained success across the region, and the media seeks a shorthand way to define it. So, until then, Rust Belt it is.