Steel Mills Of Pittsburgh

For over half a century the Pittsburgh region was the largest concentration of steel making in the world. Its collapse was spectacular. The mill towns strung along the Monongahela Valley have now suffered forty years of decline. Much of their shabby infrastructure and buildings (at best homely even in their prime) has decayed, most of their population has fled to the metropolitan suburbs or left the region, and those that remain, for the most part poor, struggle or live off memories. Regeneration is a continuing problem for public policy makers as the mill towns struggle on life-support systems — public welfare for individual households; funding from federal, state and local agencies for public services, projects and a plethora of `initiatives´. Re-born they are not.

The local response — divided, rarely ambivalent — is fascinating to the outside observer. Old and not so old men hang on to memories or fight old battles in bars, greasy spoons, and ethnic clubs. Others (perhaps most, though `most´ have died so it´s hard to say) escape to the hills and suburbs and pay little attention to the now dangerous towns in which they were raised unless a shopping mall, complete with the chain restaurants, turns their bad memories into nostalgia.The great steel cities of the past- places like Pittsburgh and Birmingham in the US and Sheffield in the UK- have all experienced the painful shock that occurs when the invisible hand of the market withdraws its support. What has happened since to people of these regions is both a reflection of the legacy of steel production and of the extreme social uncertainty created by its absence.

The extraordinary power of the steel industry to shape the life of its communities and the people in them remain...

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...e a peek. What does she think? What does anyone think when they see a sad sight, such as an old man alone looking homeless, sleeping on a park bench. Is it pity? Do they look in downright disgust? Gratitude? Maybe its thankfulness that one is not as unfortunate, perchance its thankfulness that it/they existed which would require some prior knowledge of history. So in the end I guess it is valid to inquire about a dreadful past, for there may be no gratefulness or admiration even if its an old gross eye soar. I for one would b e thankful for an old man’s courage and will to fight in an atrocious war such as world war two where not fighting could arguably be regarded as sin and in the same token for the mill, and the millions of acres of infrastructure made possible simultaneously creating a better quality life for Americans all over the country. For that I am thankful.