United States

Further information: Rust Belt

This former industrial site in Connecticut was used for office space after the manufacturer ceased operations in 1994.^[17]

Sectors of the US Economy as percent of GDP 1947-2009.^[18]

In the United States, deindustrialization is mostly a regional phenomenon, centered on the Rust belt of the original industrial centers from New England to the Great Lakes. Nationally, real industrial production rose in the United States in most years from 1983 to 2007, and manufacturing output has followed a similar pattern. Total industrial employment has been roughly constant at around 30 million people since the late 1970s (though there has been a steady decline since the all-time peak of 31.5 million in 2000). Other sectors have seen growing employment.^{[ citation needed ]}

The widespread perception of deindustrialization in the United States is due to shifting patterns in the geography and political geography of production (from the heavily unionized Northeast and Midwest towards the Southeast and the high supply of workers (largely immigrant, first-generation, and second-generation) willing to accept low wages in the Southwest), along with increasing labor productivity, which has led to higher levels of output without increases in the total number of workers.^{[ citation needed ]}

In addition, though total industrial employment has been relatively stable over the past forty years, the overall US labor force has increased dramatically, resulting in a massive reduction in the percent of the labor force engaged in industry (from over 35% in the late 1960s to under 20% today)^{[ citation needed ]}. Industry (and specifically manufacturing) is thus less prominent in American life and the American economy now than in over a hundred years.

Changes in industrial production have varied greatly between a number of sectors in recent years; since 2000, for instance, while overall output has remained roughly flat, the production of electronic equipment has risen by over 50%, while that of clothing has fallen by over 60%. Following a moderate downturn, industrial production grew slowly but steadily between 2003 and 2007. The sector, however, averaged less than 1% growth annually from 2000 to 2007; from early 2008, moreover, industrial production again declined, and by June 2009, had fallen by over 15% (the sharpest decline since the great depression). Output thereafter began to recover.^[19]

The population of the United States has nearly doubled since the 1950s, adding approximately 150 million people. Yet, during this period (1950–2007), the proportion of the population living in the great manufacturing cities of the northeast has declined significantly. During the 1950s, the nation's twenty largest cities held nearly a fifth of the US population. In 2006, this proportion has dropped to about one tenth of the population.^[20]

Many small and mid-sized manufacturing cities in the Manufacturing Belt experience similar fates. For instance, the city of Cumberland, Maryland declined from a population of 39,483 in the 1940s to a population of 20,915 in 2005, or the city of Detroit, Michigan, whose population dropped from a peak of 1,849,568 in 1950 to 713,777 in 2010, the largest drop in population of any major city in the U.S. (1,135,971) and the second largest drop in terms of percent of people lost (second only to St. Louis, Missouri's 62.7% drop).

One of the first industries to decline was the textile industry in New England, as its factories shifted to the South. Since the 1970s, textiles have also declined in the Southeast. New England responded by developing a high-tech economy, especially in education and medicine, using its very strong educational base.^[21]

As Americans migrated away from the manufacturing centers, they formed sprawling suburbs, and many former small cities have grown tremendously in the last 50 years. In 2005 alone, Phoenix, Arizona has grown by 43,000 people, an increase in population greater than any other city in the United States. Contrast that with the fact that in 1950, Phoenix was only the 99th largest city in the nation with a population of 107,000. In 2005, the population has grown to 1.5 million, ranking as the fifth largest city proper in the US.^[20]

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20