The Road through the Rust Belt: From Preeminence to Decline to Prosperity

For many years, members of the faculty and research staff in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University have paid keen attention to the problems and issues faced by midwestern industrial cities. As part of a university community, they joined with colleagues across campus to think about how to respond to disruptive change in the regional economies of twentieth century industrial cities and regions.

There is no one, simple recipe for renewing prosperity in midwestern industrial cities. But virtually all of the partial answers that emerged from their investigations recognize in one way or another that the greatest hopes and assets in these cities reside in the talent and energy of the people who live and work within them. In times of difficulty, individuals and groups discover unsuspected strengths and reveal qualities and capabilities that had not previously been seen. How can the huge reserve of human possibilities within midwestern industrial cities be released?

The chapters in this book do not contain a single, complete, and satisfying answer to the question of how to rekindle prosperity in these cities. They contain no silver bullets, but together they may be silver buckshot. They provide valuable ideas to generate prosperity.