Should-Read: Noah Smith: The Racism of the Rust Belt

Should-Read: Noah Smith: The Racism of the Rust Belt: “Wow. This article about the Rust Belt is amazing… https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/911318880500408320

…A must-read: John Austin: Segregation and changing populations shape Rust Belt’s politics https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/09/14/segregation-and-changing-populations-shape-regions-politics/. Rust Belt culture was defined by black-white segregation. This force shaped everything about the Rust Belt. Segregation either caused or was caused by a culture of xenophobia, which is now being turned against immigrants: Ronald Brownstein: Places with fewest immigrants push back hardest against immigration http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/immigration-trump-arizona/index.html. Now, nonwhite immigration is one of the only things keeping the economically stagnant Rust Belt afloat. But white Rust Belters with a culture of white flight just can’t afford to escape from skilled, high-earning nonwhite immigrants!

So the more xenophobic Rust Belt white people are flipping out over the very immigration that is saving their communities from ruin! But less xenophobic communities in the Rust Belt are embracing the new polyracial America, and thriving!

The Rust Belt, it seems, has a stark choice: Xenophobia and decline, or immigration and a better future.

September 25, 2017

AUTHORS:

Brad DeLong
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