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If you are at all interested in my writing on South Bend, please give this article a read. It is one of the best articles on the Rust Belt and does a phenomenal job identifying what I have tried to do. @jblumgart is a must follow. https://citymonitor.ai/government/cleveland-is-still-suffering-from-the-last-recession-it-cant-afford-another
On so many levels, this article gets why places from huge cities like Cleveland, to midsize cities like Dayton, to smaller cities like Flint are in so much trouble.
It's not simply just deindustrialization. Its far more complicated.
It's not simply just deindustrialization. Its far more complicated.
"gnawed down to the bone by the most inexorable forces in US history: anti-Black racism, deindustrialisation, population decline, state-level interference and aggressive suburbanisation. To deal with this staggering social crisis, Cleveland has largely been left on its own."
@jblumgart correctly identifies that only the U.S. has a Rust Belt which looks like ours. Every wealthy nation has deindustralized places, but only the U.S. has cities that look like Detroit, Cleveland, Flint....and yes South Bend.
Why? Well:
"Between 1940 and 1960, Cleveland’s Black population tripled in size to 250,000. At the same time, both capital and the white population began fleeing the city, and walls were erected to make it difficult to follow them."
"Between 1940 and 1960, Cleveland’s Black population tripled in size to 250,000. At the same time, both capital and the white population began fleeing the city, and walls were erected to make it difficult to follow them."
Furthermore, Midwestern states across the region have specifically made it more difficult and nearly impossible to adequality respond to these challenges. See this article about Indiana's forced neutering of South Bend's ability to annex. https://westsb.com/features/morepeople-five
This is precisely why the United States' system of fragmented municipalities is so terrible. It allows for the core central city to provide all the services to the region without the entire region's wealth to pay for them.
There is so much in this article to talk about and I was half convinced to tweet every sentence. Read it. If you want more stuff like this, my own series on South Bend does my best to focus on the hyper local of how one city has succumbed to these forces
https://westsb.com/?author=5f1dd5c533dc54447925fc62
https://westsb.com/?author=5f1dd5c533dc54447925fc62
