Rust Belt

The Rust Belt ( " rust belt " ), formerly Manufacturing Belt, is the oldest and was once the largest industrial region of the United States. It extends in the northeastern United States along the Great Lakes from Chicago over Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh to the East Coast to the foothills of the metropolitan Boston, Washington, DC and New York. He covers parts of the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

Industrialization

Industrialization began after the Declaration of Independence, 1776. The first factory was a cotton mill founded by a resident of England, 1790. Soon followed other textile processing plants, most of which were built at the New England rivers. The port cities on the east coast at that time were of entry for European immigrants and important trading centers, but these industries were not part of Rust Belt, which is much more dominated by heavy industry, iron, coal and steel than through textiles and trade.

Through the development of the coal and Erzreviere in Appalachia since 1893 and the iron ore deposits along the Ohio River from 1765, growth shifted into the western Pennsylvania. The beginning of oil production in Titusville (Pennsylvania) in 1859, which formed the basis for the later Standard Oil Company, the process accelerated further. In addition, the development of the Manufacturing Belt was thus promoted, that the railway network in the U.S. is quite sophisticated. It developed a composite industry. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Manufacturing Belt had unfolded its full size; , situated near the western end of big cities Chicago and Milwaukee were at this time the center of the food industry, while the emerging automotive industry in Detroit and the steel industry centered on Pittsburgh. Until the early 1970s, the region was by far the largest industrial area in the United States and one of the largest in the world.

Crisis

Since 1970, the transition from the Manufacturing Belt to the Rust Belt began ( Rust because of the old iron industry), the economic importance of the region took off. The first signs of a decline or at least for a structural crisis already existed in the late 19th century, when much of the iron ore production was relocated to Lake Superior. In the 1960s began with the migration of heavy industry in the cheaper -producing developing countries, the actual decline. In place of the Manufacturing Belt as fastest growing region today, the Sun Belt is entered in the south of the country.