Before the Rust Belt was Rusty

Students in Utah in the 2020's sometimes have a hard time understanding why anyone ever wanted to live in the rust belt.

But ... check out this list of metropolitan areas with the highest incomes from 1949.

Only one city west of the Mississippi. None in the old South (especially, nothing in Texas or Florida). Heck ... only one on the east coast.

The phenomenon of the coasts being richer and the flyover states being poorer, is definitely one of the last 2 generations or so.

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FWIW: think about the stories told by most of your relatives ... Utah was a place people moved away from until about 1990.