Skip to:
  1. Main navigation
  2. Main content
  3. Footer
Economic Commentary

Is the Rust Belt's Revival Real?

The Great Lakes region was battered in the 1970s and early 1980s by a number of structural and cyclical adjustments. Heavy industry retrenched, manufacturing jobs were slashed by the thousands, and many factories were permanently closed. So severe were the economic woes felt here that the region became known nationwide as the Rust Belt, an area seemingly destined to suffer a continuing downward spiral in relative employment levels and living standards.

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Anderson, Gerald. 1992. “Is the Rust Belt's Revival Real?” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 3/1/1992.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International