在19世纪末至20世纪中叶期间经历了几次繁荣时期之后,该地区的城市逐渐难以适应各种不利的经济和社会条件。从1979年到1982年,美联储决定将美国的基本利率提高到19%。高利率吸引了大量外国“热钱”进入美国银行,并导致美元升值。这使外国人购买美国货时价钱更加昂贵,也使进口商品对美国人而言更加便宜。直到1986年,汇率失衡的情况才得以纠正,此时进口商品(特别是日本货)已迅速进入了美国市场。[8]从1987年到1999年,美国股市进入了暴涨期,使大量外资继续流入美国银行,这又使汇率不利于工业制成品。与之相关联的问题包括美国钢铁工业(英语:Iron and steel industry in the United States)的衰落、制造业向劳动力成本较低的东南部州转移、[9]工业流程自动化程度提高导致的裁员、钢铁产业的劳动力需求减少、新的组织方式(例如及時制度)使工厂能够用更少的工人来维持生产、美国商业的国际化,以及全球化带来的国际贸易政策的自由化。[10]在这些不利条件下挣扎的城市面临着许多困难,包括人口流失、缺乏教育、税收减少、失业和犯罪率高企、毒品泛滥、福利入不敷出、赤字率上升以及市政府信用等级下降。[11][12][13][14][15]
在匹兹堡,机器人研究中心和诸如国家机器人工程中心(英语:National Robotics Engineering Center)和机器人研究所、Aethon Inc.、美国机器人公司、Automatika、Quantapoint、Blue Belt Technologies和Seegrid之类的公司正在创建最先进的机器人技术应用。阿克伦过去曾是“世界橡胶之都”,但在主要轮胎和橡胶制造商古德里奇、凡士通和将军轮胎(英语:General Tire)关闭生产线后失去了35,000个工作機會,而现在又作为聚合物研究的中心再次在世界范围内广为人知,该地区拥有四百多间聚合物相关的制造和經销公司。之所以能够实现这一转变,部分原因是选择留下的固特异轮胎橡胶公司、艾克朗大學和市长办公室之间的合作。帮助启动了许多成功的企业创业的Akron Global Business Accelerator就位于翻新后的BF Goodrich轮胎工厂中。[51]
^Teaford, Jon C. Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
^Meyer, David R. 1989. "Midwestern Industrialization and the American Manufacturing Belt in the Nineteenth Century." Journal of Economic History 49(4):921–937.
^High, Steven C. Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969–1984. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
^Jargowsky, Paul A. Poverty and Place: Ghettos, Barrios, and the American City. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997.
^Hagedorn, John M., and Perry Macon. People and Folks: Gangs, Crime and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City. Lake View Press, Chicago, IL, (paperback: ISBN0-941702-21-9; clothbound: ISBN0-941702-20-0), 1988.
^"Rust Belt Woes: Steel out, drugs in," The Northwest Florida Daily News, January 16, 2008. PDF互联网档案馆的存檔,存档日期2016-04-06.
^Beeson, Patricia E. "Sources of the decline of manufacturing in large metropolitan areas." Journal of Urban Economics 28, no. 1 (1990): 71–86.
^Higgins, James Jeffrey. Images of the Rust Belt. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999.
^Sun On The Snow Belt (editorial). Chicago Tribune. August 25, 1985 [September 22, 2011]. (原始内容存档于2012-10-07). The Northern states, once the foundry of the nation, are known now as the Rust Belt or the Snow Belt, in invidious comparison to the supposedly booming Sun Belt.
^Roberts, Paul Craig (August 7, 2003).Jobless in the USANewsmax. Retrieved on June 23, 2009.
^Hira, Ron and Anil Hira with forward by Lou Dobbs, (May 2005). Outsourcing America: What's Behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs. (AMACOM) American Management Association. Citing Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Samuelson, and Lou Dobbs, pp. 36–38.
^ 29.029.129.2Phillips, Kevin. Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Penguin. 2007. ISBN 978-0-14-314328-4.
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Engerman, Stanley L., and Robert E. Gallman. The Cambridge Economic History of the United States: The Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hagedorn, John, and Perry Macon. People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rust-Belt City. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1988. ISBN0-941702-21-9
High, Steven C. Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969–1984. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN0-8020-8528-8
Higgins, James Jeffrey. Images of the Rust Belt. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999. ISBN0-87338-626-4
Lopez, Steven Henry. Reorganizing the Rust Belt: An Inside Study of the American Labor Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN0-520-23565-7
Preston, Richard. American Steel. New York: Avon Books, 1992. ISBN0-13-029604-X
Rotella, Carlo. Good with Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN0-520-22562-7
Teaford, Jon C.Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. ISBN0-253-35786-1
Warren, Kenneth. The American Steel Industry, 1850–1970: A Geographical Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. ISBN0-8229-3597-X