Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Velvet_Highground]

Columbus really rolled a great hand when playing the rust belt game. Capital city which is at the very least business and adds to the tax base having one of the largest and most prestigious universities though helped by having a large generally well off student body that needs housing. Forward thinking coming from the institution on how to make a strong impact as well as wanting projects that live up to the high standard the university represents.

Madison and Ann Arbor & Lansing are all nice cities with Lansing being a bit different due to the Lansing / East Lansing divide. You have University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and Michigan and or Michigan State in Detroit the city’s would be very different places Detroit would most likely have at least an average mass transit system. The ability to annex during the really aggressive suburban expansion post riot phase was a lifeline for holding back the negative feedback loop of post industrial decay.

There’s a lot of other factors that get talked about like geography, climate, coast & or waterfront, good transit & ability to expand. While other people might argue about the Chicago effect it’s the reason why constraints were placed on Detroit’s ability to grow by turning annexation into an electoral issue. There does seem to be an inherent fairness to it at face value people chose to live where they are what mechanism should allow that to change is fair.

Even if it was designed to specifically kneecap Detroit’s growth. It’s an interesting philosophical question where that line of for the good of the people actually is or where it should be. No one wants to wake up one day and have for the public good destroying a community for a cause they don’t believe in and have no recourse. Although perhaps if racial tensions were less and the system was a more just and fair one we wouldn’t be having this debate.

Although I personally think the more you look into the rust belt, Appalachia, the delta & or the Res you find yourself getting into really good meat and potato level debates on what the bleeding edge of America as a system, polity & social experiment looks like for good and ill. There’s other perspectives from different angles are apt too. But I think a lot can be learned from stress test and deindustrialization has been the great societal challenge of the past 60 years.

But like what worked what’s replicable, what’s unique to circumstance and or location. It’s really interesting to me at least. Arguably race is just as or in many cases more important redlining and the issue of integration of schools can’t be downplayed.

Edit* I think it goes without saying but it’s always worth mentioning considering the subject at hand. The Great Migration might almost be too on the nose but this is American English that’s how we roll.