Thursday, August 12, 2004

Dusting off the 'Rust Belt'

Presidential candidates urged to solve Midwest metro woes

Metropolitan policy experts from the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan Washington, D.C., think tank, said presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry have failed to address issues of sprawl and population stagnation in the "rust belt" states during campaigning in the region.
Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the institute's Metropolitan Policy Program, and Mark Muro, a senior policy analyst for the program, wrote an essay published in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer newspaper this week that states, "By failing to engage with the toughest questions about the rust belt's future, the candidates may be missing the chance to connect."

The rust belt is a term used to refer to a region in the Midwest and Northeast that was once a bustling center for steel and heavy industrial production but experienced major declines in manufacturing in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Read the entire article HERE

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