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Report: Rochester among top 10 Rust Belt recovery cities
Report: Rochester among top 10 Rust Belt recovery cities
Rochester has ranked among the top 10 Rust Belt cities in terms of comebacks, according to a new report from Commercial Café.
Of the top 17 cities ranked, Rochester was 10th. Buffalo, the only other city in New York to make the list, ranked fourth. Rochester earned accolades for its population growth and the percentage of new housing units built in the decade since the financial crisis that began in 2008.
The report notes that Rochester was home to some 331,000 residents in 1950, but the city’s population had shrunk to 191,000 by 2008. A decade later, Rochester’s population had grown 9 percent to 208,000, according to the report.
An 8 percent increase in new housing units in Rochester is not enough to address a growing interest in the market, the report states, leading to bidding wars among home buyers.
Ranked first in the report is Grand Rapids, Mich., with high scores for its labor force participation and its decrease in the overall poverty rate. Madison, Wisc., ranked second, while Pittsburgh, Pa., rounded out the top three Rust Belt cities.
The Rust Belt—a group of cities, primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, that in the last four decades have experienced an economic downturn as a result of deindustrialization—slowly has made a resurgence in recent years thanks in part to advanced manufacturing.
“Documenting the resurgence of America’s Rust Belt is a highly complex endeavor, given the size of the area and the diversity of local conditions,” the report’s authors contend. “Rust Belt cities face a wide range of challenges. While the region is home to some incredible talent, it still lags behind coastal urban areas in terms of its ability to attract investment.”
Commercial Café, a Yardi Systems Inc. company, is a commercial real estate information services provider for the commercial investments industry. Using U.S. Census data, the report’s research included 105 former manufacturing cities in the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
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