I don't want to downplay the real hardship that many Ohioans are enduring.
A Reuters story that ran in the New York Times on March 10, "Ohio's 'Dirty Little Secret': Blue-Collar Democrats for Trump," which refers to the Rust Belt five times, including this gem about Trump winning in Massachusetts: "Although not a rust belt state, Trump won big in heavily blue collar, union cities." (Massachusetts unemployment rate is a whopping 0.2 percent lower than Ohio's.).The economic turmoil caused by the shrinking textile industry in the Mid-Atlantic states or the loss of manufacturing in the Northeast hasn't earned those regions a sweeping pejorative like Rust Belt.īut here are some headlines and analysis we've been treated to recently by the Washington press corps: Somehow, the rust just shows more here, I guess.Īnother from the Labor Department: Greater Cincinnati's unemployment rate in December was 4.3 percent – lower than the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area's 4.4 percent and a bit higher than the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro area's 3.8 percent rate. In Cincinnati's Northside neighborhood, the American Can factory – a big, polluted eyesore, was cleaned up and transformed into a luxury apartment building and restaurant.įun fact: Ohio's unemployment rate stands at 4.9 percent. In Cincinnati's Madisonville neighborhood, the old NuTone plant has been transformed into Medpace, a global health care and drug research campus that will soon be neighbored by a $200 million residential, retail and hotel complex that was announced last week. Both helped spur development of the nearby thriving Rookwood Commons office, restaurant and retail complex. But guess what? Three decades later, the factory is long gone, replaced by office buildings and an outdoor mall. Were the plant still standing vacant, sure, that would be an ugly notch in a rusty belt.
In 1987, General Motors shut down its Chevrolet Camaro plant there, leaving the small city reeling. If the term were ever applicable, that time is long gone. The term conjures images of hulking, empty factories and lines of broken men lining up for unemployment checks, doesn't it? A place whose glory days are history, its inhabitants hopeless and forlorn. Along with insights about the races, time and again, reporters' go-to descriptor for Ohio and neighboring states is "Rust Belt." I read a lot of stories about the presidential race in the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico and other great publications. CINCINNATI – Attention, New York and Washington media: It's time to stop smearing us with the Rust Belt epithet.
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