The Black Working Class of the Rust Belt

[Docere]

Don't hear about them much in discussions about the rust belt. Interesting piece (via Pete Saunders):

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...democrats.html

[dc_denizen]

I find the term rust belt offensive.

[edale]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I find the term rust belt offensive.

Yep, me too. It's pejorative and is used to portray a large, diverse region as being entirely run down, old, irrelevant, etc. Is booming Columbus, with its white collar economy and educated population, part of the rust belt simply because it's in Ohio? Is Birmingham, AL not part of the rust belt even though it has a strong legacy of steel and iron production?

I know that population and economic trends aren't caused by terminology, but don't you think the south has benefited from the Sun Belt label, while the midwest has been harmed by the Rust Belt label? What if the south was instead referred to as the Sprawl Belt, or if Bible Belt made a comeback? Should the West Coast be referred to as the Homeless Belt? It seems like it's only ok to use offensive terms when discussing the midwest. Flyover Country is another term that has bothered me for years.

[JManc]

I don't. It accurately describes an area that was an industrial and economic juggernaut to one that still struggles to this day and is a shadow of its former self. Even if it has rebounded in some areas and declined has slowed in others.

[Pedestrian]

^^This is the sort of thing that causes the term to persist and remain valid in terms of the images it conjures:

U.S. Steel Suffers New Fire Knocking Out Pollution Controls in Plant Near Pittsburgh
By Kris Maher
Updated June 17, 2019 11:30 pm ET

PITTSBURGH—The biggest coke plant in the U.S. operated for much of Monday with limited pollution controls after the second fire in nearly six months broke out at the facility, prompting a warning by county health officials to residents.

U.S. Steel ’s Clairton Plant, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh, is more than 100 years old and one of the region’s largest contributors of air pollution. A Dec. 24 fire at the plant knocked out pollution controls, sending emissions of sulfur dioxide higher for several months.

The increased pollution prompted a flood of complaints about foul smells in the Pittsburgh region and a county health advisory that people limit their outdoor activity in January.

On Monday, the Allegheny County Health Department said that following an early morning fire at the coke plant people with respiratory problems, the elderly and children should once again be aware of the potential for higher sulfur dioxide levels. It didn’t, however, advise people to take any specific actions.

The health department also issued an emergency order Monday requiring U.S. Steel to submit a plan within 24 hours to bring the plant into compliance with sulfur-dioxide and hydrogen-sulfide standards. The company would have to cease coking operations if it couldn’t achieve compliance within 20 days, the department said.

By Monday night, however, U.S. Steel announced that it had restored normal operations at the plant . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-ste...s&page=1&pos=1

And Pittsburgh is a relative success story in the region.

[dc_denizen]

Well what about the tianjjn explosion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions

If people writing apps (west coast) or pushing money around (east coast) mess up, nobody is hurt.

But different when your actually making things

[dc_denizen]

Anyhow, the nice thing about whites and blacks in the ‘rust belt’ is that they share economic interests...there is also less racial inequality compared to the coasts.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Anyhow, the nice thing about whites and blacks in the ‘rust belt’ is that they share economic interests...there is also less racial inequality compared to the coasts.

When you have less economic opportunity that happens.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Docere

Don't hear about them much in discussions about the rust belt. Interesting piece (via Pete Saunders):

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...democrats.html

Interesting read, contrasting the highly visible and vocal white working class with the black working class. I had no idea Youngston was predominately black.

“There’s no boom in Youngstown, but blue-collar workers are sticking with Trump,” the New York Times announced last month, in the latest of a series of Trump Country dispatches on the nation’s white working class. These heartland safaris exhibit a common media oversight: the compulsion to paint white, small-town manufacturing workers as the face of the working class, which is in reality mostly urban, racially diverse, and more likely to make burgers than automobiles.

In Youngstown, these stories exhibit another oversight: Youngstown is not white. In contrast to the largely white Mahoning Valley, for which it often serves as an unthinking stand-in, the city itself is 43 percent black and majority-minority. The mayor is black. In more than a dozen interviews in Youngstown’s black community, I could not find anyone who knew a black Trump supporter, let alone was one. But not all of the people I talked to voted for Hillary Clinton, either.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

As my dad would say.... "its a failure to move on". The world changes, change with it or get swept away as the world is cruel mistress who doesn't care about your ideology or your nostalgia.

They are certainly trying. Detroit is making important strides with Quicken Loans in the lead and, as I said above, Pittsburgh is a standout too:

Why Pittsburgh Is the Next Best Startup City in America
By Jeff BarrettCEO, Barrett Digital@barrettall

"According to CBRE's annual Tech-30 report, Pittsburgh's high-tech talent pool grew 31.4 percent during 2015 and 2016, behind only San Francisco (39.4 percent) and Charlotte (31.6 percent)," . . . .

The self-driving car was born at Carnegie Mellon University, the nation's leading robotics school, in the late 1970's. Google has a large campus in Pittsburgh. And the people in Pittsburgh lean in to robotics, AI and future tech more than any other place I've been outside of Silicon Valley.

I was able to walk from Google across the street to UPMC Enterprises, the venture arm of a $16 billion integrated non-profit healthy system, one of the largest in the country. Someone who works in Pittsburgh can interact with Uber, Google, AutoDesk, the world's best robotics school and multiple top venture firms within walking distance. Most cities don't have that. And it has created a city full of marker and doers . . . .

Where many cities ultimately fall short is access to capital. Pittsburgh has a rich history of successful founders . . . .

Pittsburgh, once the richest city in America, still had plenty of wealthy descendants. They never left. They invested in universities to make them world-class and keep Pittsburgh competitive . . . .

The former steel city has the sixth-biggest startup accelerator in the country staffed by talented people that have achieved success in Silicon Valley.

Rich Lunak's AlphaLab and AlphaLab Gear accelerators now serve as a hub for the region's thriving entrepreneurial community . . . .

https://www.inc.com/jeff-barrett/how...on-valley.html

[Docere]

To the media, "working class" means conservative white people without college degrees.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

^^This is the sort of thing that causes the term to persist and remain valid in terms of the images it conjures:




And Pittsburgh is a relative success story in the region.

Pittsburgh is an outlier. It had all the right attributes for it to regroup after the decline of steel industry and adapt to a knowledge based/ high-tech economy. One of your articles even touched upon that. Most of the region wasn't so lucky. They just withered on the vine and hung their hopes on a distribution center or whatever industry remained to sustain them.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Interesting read, contrasting the highly visible and vocal white working class with the black working class. I had no idea Youngston was predominately black.

Youngstown is heavily white and has shifted towards Trumpism, unfortunately. The article has a false premise, because by "Youngstown" they mean city limits, which are maybe 15% of "Youngstown". Of course the black neighborhoods haven't made the same shift.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by edale

Yep, me too. It's pejorative and is used to portray a large, diverse region as being entirely run down, old, irrelevant, etc. Is booming Columbus, with its white collar economy and educated population, part of the rust belt simply because it's in Ohio? Is Birmingham, AL not part of the rust belt even though it has a strong legacy of steel and iron production?

I know that population and economic trends aren't caused by terminology, but don't you think the south has benefited from the Sun Belt label, while the midwest has been harmed by the Rust Belt label? What if the south was instead referred to as the Sprawl Belt, or if Bible Belt made a comeback? Should the West Coast be referred to as the Homeless Belt? It seems like it's only ok to use offensive terms when discussing the midwest. Flyover Country is another term that has bothered me for years.

Yes, just as much as Dallas (with its tough winters given its latitude) is part of the Sun Belt.

Very few labels are all inclusive or fully defining.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

And they dare not mention such towns in The South such as Memphis and Birmingham.

"What will get people to click?!"

"Nothing that also exists in The South!!!"

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I find the term rust belt offensive.

I would suggest "Oxidation Cummerbund" as an alternative, but it sounds like the name of a band, or a hipster bar, or perhaps both.