But, Phoenix's model of growth-oriented politics weakened the economic health of both the Sunbelt and
Rustbelt. Local cities' use of tax holidays, giveaways, and nonunionized wage rates caused Sunbelt development to become irregular because companies relocated to pursue the financial perks offered by competing cities.
not exclusively impact the
Rustbelt. Those changes hit older cities
Mayoral elections were also held Tuesday in the
rustbelt city of Detroit, which recently declared bankruptcy.
Several major cities in the "
Rustbelt" are looking a lot less rusty thanks to burgeoning development especially in downtown areas attractive to a younger workforce.
Tammy Thomas, an African American from Youngstown, Ohio, exemplifies the familiar
Rustbelt decline, stumbling through the consequences of the financial manipulations that led to the meltdown of first a steel company and later an auto-parts manufacturer.
In late 2004, he was made party chief of Liaoning, a
rustbelt province striving to attract investment and reinvent itself as a modern industrial heartland.
plus Nevada and Alaska, while the Huffington Post is widely share along the Interstate 35 corridor (Minnesota to Texas), Florida, Oregon, Maine and the
rustbelt.
American '
rustbelt' cities whose economies have been
With the decline in the US steel and automotive industries, several of the main
rustbelt cities such as Detroit and Cleveland have seen significant job losses and jobs have moved south toward Columbus and the southeastern United States.
"When I came across Pat Thomson book "Schooling the
rustbelt kids" in 2002 I could not help thinking that to call children in the disadvantaged program
rustbelt kids labeled them as unsalvageable.
Their parents, among the many Catholic families that had moved out of the cities and into the suburbs, out of the
RustBelt and into the Sun Belt, were learning firsthand that building and staffing new Catholic schools to meet the demand was prohibitively expensive.
"Now is not the time to pass more wrongheaded free trade agreements," said Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, who represents the
rustbelt state of Ohio.