rust belt.

A region marked by the decline of older heavy industry and its associated jobs and infrastructure.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a rust-belt town
• a former rust belt
• rust-belt industry

On the page

The novel followed a family through three rust-belt towns without treating them as interchangeable ruins.

New workshops had opened in the rust belt, but the old mills still dominated the skyline.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting. Forms: Singular rust belt; plural rust belts. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.