Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Check out Blytheville and Osceola, Arkansas in Google Maps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missis...ty%2C_Arkansas

My freshman year college roommate was from Osceola High. I visited his family for a week, and holy crap, that area was a caricature of every negative Deep South stereotype. Warm people, but ultra-poor, super-segregated, and still had plantation economy cultural/economic norms. Almost every white kid in the country who doesn't live in a trailer park attends a segregation academy. The local public schools are horrific. There's nothing to do but go in the woods and drink and shoot at animals. My buddy was basically a unicorn. In a town where many don't finish high school, and few make it to the local community college, he had offers from some of the best universities.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

That skyline view

Lake Michigan is warm compared to Donner Lake, Lake Tahoe and NorCal beaches where I grew up swimming. Nothing like Florida though.

Yeah, that skyline view is awesome

If you could guarantee me that global warming will make the southernmost parts of Lake Michigan fit for aquatic human activities within my lifetime, I'd buy that lot, I'm displeased with Canada and will likely be relocating to the U.S. eventually, that looks like a great location to be. Side bonus would be, I like the idea of going against the stigma and settling in a place like Gary! Michael Jackson's hometown

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

If you could guarantee me that global warming will make the southernmost parts of Lake Michigan fit for aquatic human activities within my lifetime

It already is, depending on the human.

Those unfortunate souls towards the pussy end of the spectrum? well...... no such luck.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

It can be hard to appreciate the fact today, but Gary really once was a "real" smaller-sized city, with an actual, functional downtown.

Unless you wanna cry, don't go google mapping that view today.

Yea, who cares about that... we still live in the "greatest country in the world", right??

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by lio45

YI'm displeased with Canada and will likely be relocating to the U.S. eventually, that looks like a great location to be. Side bonus would be, I like the idea of going against the stigma and settling in a place like Gary! Michael Jackson's hometown

Michael Jackson (and all the Jacksons) left Gary as soon as humanly possible.

Canada may have its faults, but jeez, can't imagine voluntarily relocating to Gary. Sounds like some weird social media stunt.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Michael Jackson (and all the Jacksons) left Gary as soon as humanly possible.

Canada may have its faults, but jeez, can't imagine voluntarily relocating to Gary. Sounds like some weird social media stunt.

Proximity to Chicago was also a huge factor in the success of the Jackson 5. Joe Jackson had them performing in nightclubs in Chicago on a weekly basis before they were signed by Motown and relocated to Detroit.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yea, who cares about that... we still live in the "greatest country in the world", right??

We are a stupidly wasteful society, throwing away whole cities sometimes.

Though, in Gary's case, it's not just a rustbelt story of massive industrial job loss.

From 1970-2020, Gary lost ~106K people.

Over that exact same time frame, 5 lake county burbs south of Gary (Dyer, Merrillville, Schererville, Crown Point, and St. John) gained a combined ~105K people.


Hmmm.........


Other forces were at work too.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Michael Jackson (and all the Jacksons) left Gary as soon as humanly possible.

Canada may have its faults, but jeez, can't imagine voluntarily relocating to Gary. Sounds like some weird social media stunt.

Making Niagara Falls, NY look like a decent place to move by comparison
(people also forget Niagara County, NY has Lake Ontario lakefront (~34 miles), wineries/orchards, Niagara Gorge)

[Crawford]

NFNY, while not my cup of tea, isn't a terrible place. The surrounding countryside is quite scenic. I took a drive from the falls up to Fort Niagara, and that whole river corridor is very beautiful. I really liked Lewiston.

Even the city is is only bad in that it's desolate in some core parts. Urban renewal went crazy. It isn't particularly high crime, or scary looking, or all abandoned-looking. It's more like they demolished a big area and couldn't figure out what to do next. Then the local economy declined and there wasn't much demand for new growth. Now it looks like the downtown is missing.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Now it looks like the downtown is missing.

Maybe that big fat bloated casino ate the downtown?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NFNY, while not my cup of tea, isn't a terrible place. The surrounding countryside is quite scenic. I took a drive from the falls up to Fort Niagara, and that whole river corridor is very beautiful. I really liked Lewiston.

The drive along the Niagara river on both sides of the border is quite nice. The Canadian side has some mega mansions.
Lewiston has always been a small gem. They have a great summer weekly music festival at the Art Park outdoor amphitheatre where the small town gets packed with people, and Lewiston has always been known by Canadians and Western NYers alike to have good restaurants.

I've always been intrigued by the large homes or even old money mansions in Lewiston that would fit right in if plopped down say in the Grossed Pointes.
Either located on the Niagara escarpment (like below) or some along the Niagara River. In stark contrast to the post industrial grit of NFNY.
Those views from the backyard overlooking Niagara River and the vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake. On a clear day you can make out Lake Ontario and the Toronto skyline.
• Video Link
Zestimate $1.43M

• Video Link
Zestimate $1.03M

Like I said the median sold home price in NFNY is already around $155k ($182k in Niagara County) in contrast to say Gary or Flint which is half that. In Lewiston it's ~$270k.

If the city proper of Buffalo can come back, so can Niagara Falls, NY ~20 miles to the north... eventually

edit: realtor.com data used for home prices

[benp]

Originally Posted by Wigs

The drive along the Niagara river on both sides of the border is quite nice. The Canadian side has some mega mansions.
Lewiston has always been a small gem. They have a great summer weekly music festival at the Art Park outdoor amphitheatre where the small town gets packed with people, and Lewiston has always been known by Canadians and Western NYers alike to have good restaurants.

I've always been intrigued by the large homes or even old money mansions in Lewiston that would fit right in if plopped down say in the Grossed Pointes.
Either located on the Niagara escarpment (like below) or some along the Niagara River. In stark contrast to the post industrial grit of NFNY.
Those views from the backyard overlooking Niagara River and the vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake. On a clear day you can make out Lake Ontario and the Toronto skyline.

Zestimate $1.03M

Like I said the median sold home price in NFNY is already around $155k ($182k in Niagara County) in contrast to say Gary or Flint which is half that. In Lewiston it's ~$270k.

If the city proper of Buffalo can come back, so can Niagara Falls, NY ~20 miles to the north... eventually

Not sure where that number came from for NFNY. I looked at the median sales price in March of all transactions in NFNY, unbundled a group of 8 homes (each showed 520k sales price, which did not reflect the size/condition/location so I assumed it was total cost of transaction and divided 520k by 8 for each home), and removed an apartment sale (2.5M) and came up with a median home sale of 95k for the month.

source: https://cms5.revize.com/revize/niaga...2024_March.pdf

Perhaps the number came from median home listing price?

That said, I also believe that Niagara Falls is set to grow. Places like North Tonawanda and Wheatfield (in Niagara County) are already seeing growth.

[Wigs]

I used realtor.com numbers, which I specified are far from exact

Originally Posted by Wigs

According to realtor.com (far from exact)

Median sold price
East St. Louis $25.8K
Gary $70.5K
Flint $71.9K
Camden $105K
Niagara Falls, NY $154.7K

Also benp, I haven't found a realtor break down the market for Niagara Falls, NY.
You put in the effort to analyze the data yourself!

The Buffalo-Niagara realtors association doesn't even break down the market by sub-market (e.g. city of Buffalo, city of Niagara Falls, town of Lewiston) from what I can find.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Steely, that looks like one of the most robust downtowns in America for a city of its size at the time

Missed this comment earlier.

I don't know if I'd go that far.

The vast majority of smaller cities in the rustbelt had WAY healthier, more vibrant, and more structurally dense downtowns 60 years ago. I'm not sure Gary's downtown would've been particularly exceptional at the time.

I think the reason Gary stands out so much in that old aerial is because its downtown has undergone one of the worst collapses in US history, so the before/after difference is extremely stark.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Michael Jackson (and all the Jacksons) left Gary as soon as humanly possible.

Canada may have its faults, but jeez, can't imagine voluntarily relocating to Gary. Sounds like some weird social media stunt.

Well, I didn't say I'd want to voluntarily relocate to the most dilapidated areas of Gary or anywhere else for that matter. I just think that, looking for my long-term forever home (for which I'm still not decided), this precise location would be a strong contender. I like Chicago, I like sandy beaches, I like the waterfront, and the skyline view is great.

The fact that it's within Gary city limits is irrelevant; to me all that matters is that it's in Chicagoland (and lakefront).

[lio45]

I also wonder whether the special expertise we developed over the last decades serving a DRI mill (they love what we do so much, they're almost stuck with us now) would be as desirable to a blast furnace mill; probably not, unfortunately.

Because if so, then living in Lake County Indiana would be super strategic too, financially

[Steely Dan]

^ the billion dollar question for Gary Works (and the other two nearby integrated mills) going forward in this century is whether ownership (whoever that will eventually be) will make the major investment to revamp the plant into a more eco-friendly DRI-type operation or just shut the old blast furnaces down and close the plant altogether.

It's absolutely of vital national interest/security for the US to maintain some degree of native ability to make primary steel from mineral ore, but those dirty old blast furnaces will have to go away at some point, especially given all the newer technologies maturing today to separate the iron from the oxygen in much cleaner/less energy intensive ways.

But it's gonna take serious money to upgrade an operation like Gary Works. Could be cheaper to just start from scratch somewhere else.

However, the bottom of lake Michigan will remain as good a place to make steel as it has for the past 100+ years.

We'll see.....

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Missed this comment earlier.

I don't know if I'd go that far.

The vast majority of smaller cities in the rustbelt had WAY healthier, more vibrant, and more structurally dense downtowns 60 years ago. I'm not sure Gary's downtown would've been particularly exceptional at the time.

I think the reason Gary stands out so much in that old aerial is because its downtown has undergone one of the worst collapses in US history, so the before/after difference is extremely stark.

I think the lack of parking lots and what looks like hundreds of intact commerical or mixed used buildings gave me that impression. Hard to tell from one grainy image

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Wigs

I think the lack of parking lots and what looks like hundreds of intact commerical or mixed used buildings gave me that impression. Hard to tell from one grainy image

Oh, Gary's downtown was infinitely better back then (because it actually existed), but aerials of Flint or Youngstown from back then would likely show even more robust downtown cores.

Flint and Youngstown were always more of their own deals, whereas Gary has always been much more in a "captured industrial satellite" orbit, only 25 miles outside of mighty Chicago.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by lio45

Thanks a lot for the info. Still very cold IMO, it just took away all my interest in that lakefront piece of land. (Too bad, I really like the Chicago area.)

when you arrive on the shores of lake michigan from 100 F St. Louis and the gulf and southern Atlantic have turned to hot bathwater it feels like a different kind of paradise.

i’m guessing people from Phoenix feel the same way about the cool Pacific. Not sure theres a more contrasting under 5 hour drive in summer in the midwest.