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Public Information Office CB99-27
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Glenn King
301-457-1171
Census Bureau Examines "Rust Belt's"
Economic and Demographic Comeback
The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today issued a new study showing
that many metropolitan areas located within the so-called Rust Belt have
rebounded economically and demographically from the 1980s to the 1990s.
The study cites statistical evidence from the recently published State
and Metropolitan Area Data Book: 1997-98.
The Census Brief (CENBR/98-7), "Rust Belt" Rebounds, examines changes in
such metro areas as Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, Mich.; Cleveland-Akron,
Ohio; Canton-Massillon, Ohio; and Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, Iowa-Ill.,
which were net population losers in the 1980s, but net population gainers
through the first seven years of the 1990s.
The brief looks at statistical reversals of fortune in such categories
as nonfarm business establishments and unemployment, as well as serious
crimes, average annual salaries and new- job generation.
It also notes some exceptions to the area-wide (mostly Midwest)
trend -- metro areas that lost population in both the 1980s and thus far
in the 1990s.
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The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of
timely, relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the
United States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
