Chapter 3: Deindustrialization: Formation of the Rust Belt
Deindustrialization occurred more rapidly than industrialization, beginning in the middle of the 20th century and lasting into the present. The result has been a different kind of transformation- abandonment and subsequent demolition of historical monuments with their associated memory and history. “Gaping holes could be found in cities across the region and mirrored the emotional loss felt by residents and industrial workers. As always, emptiness disturbs and empty spaces beg for explanation” (High 6). As pointed out by author Steven High in his book Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt, 1969-1984, deindustrialization manifested itself as a depression, a disaster - albeit on a smaller scale than the national economic collapse of the 1930’s or the Dust Bowl, but bore comparison to both.
Cause
There were a variety of causes responsible for the deindustrialization of the Midwest and, like industrialization, the timing of various factors coincided in such a way as to create reciprocity. It was a time when politics, economics and technology were changing rapidly, and the realities of the machine age and its effect on the environment were becoming apparent. This became especially true after World War I, when the “potentially positive” force of machinery was challenged (Lange 20).
Politics, Economics, Technology
The “inevitability” of the deindustrialization of the Midwest can be easily contested when contrasted with parallel industries in Canada, which didn’t close a single steel or auto assembly plant between 1969 and 1984 (High 130). The semantics were different; American politicians and mill owners used the word ‘closed’ more often than ‘shutdown’, and in Canada there was no comparison with other disasters like the American anxiety and fears of enduring another depression. The Midwest shutdowns were spoken of with a sense of permanence, while Canadians remained optimistic that their shutdowns were only temporary.
As urbanization became the result of industrialization, land prices and property taxes began to increase
in cities. Corporations began to look for real estate outside of the city center, leaving the towns that they once established scrambling to find new industry and new purpose, with the hulking, empty shell of the abandoned factory in the background.
There are unavoidable technological investments that must be made in order to keep factories relevant. In the Midwest, there was a conscious decision to not update existing technology in existing factories; as High states, “there was nothing inevitable about the aging process.” When owners saw the opportunity to move their factories to cheaper land and avoid unionization, they neglected to update the technology and the buildings and machinery inevitably fell behind. Aside from neglecting to update the facilities, the technology was advancing and the processes were changing quickly, requiring fewer workers for production in the modern, up to date factories. As the president of Wheeling Steel wrote to its shareholders in 1954- “the only constant in a successful steel business is constant change”- this is not only true for the steel industry but for all industries, and was a concept recognized early among corporations.
Timeline of deindustrialization in the Midwest.
1950-1970
American corporations began decentralizing, moving their operations outside of the city center, or moving
to the south, or the ‘Sun Belt’, where the pressures of unionization were less popular. As corporations began moving, so did the population. While 1950 marked the height of production for some industries in the Midwest, specifically the rubber industry, it marked the beginning of decline for others, like the automobile industry, which began moving its factories outside of Detroit and into the suburbs.
This relocation produced very different building types- no longer hindered by the extents of a city block, factories became sprawling, one story complexes surrounded by vast parking lots due to the fact that everybody now had to drive to work. As automobile factories moved out of the city, so did suppliers- smaller factories and machine shops moved and, given that one-sixth of the nation’s jobs were somehow related to the auto industry (Sugrue), this movement had a significant negative effect on cities across the Midwest.
1970-1990
In an effort to compete in a global market, corporations were faced with the decision to either outsource
or update technology to the point where very few workers were required to do the work that once took dozens to complete. The steel industry began to experience this decline in the 1980’s, and cities like Gary, Youngstown, Cleveland and towns along both sides of the Ohio River began rapidly losing their population. In Youngstown, the population dropped from 170,000 in the 1950’s to 95,000 in 1990, and similar trends can be seen across the region where intense periods of prosperity led to intense periods of depression and collective belonging was replaced with collective displacement.
In the 1970’s, the second oil crisis led to a demand for small cars. American factories were not equipped to handle this demand, so people began outsourcing their vehicles. This signaled the beginning of the decline of the American automobile industry, which, in retrospect, seemed like an inevitability given the recent decline of other, related industries in the region. 20,955 factories closed in the Midwest between 1963 and 1982 (High 115).
1990-present
Gary, Indiana remains the largest steelmaker in the country, but employs one-fifth of the workforce that it
used to (Terry) due to technological advancements and outsourcing. On a recent trip through the Midwest, Gary’s reputation as “an ash heap in the northwest corner of Indiana, a grimy, barren steel town” (Sisson) was confirmed. No longer operated by U.S. Steel, the artificial landscape surrounding the city is owned and operated by a multinational corporation called ArcelorMittal, a company which now owns the majority of the remaining steel industry in America.
An unused, dilapidated shed in the ArcelorMittal steelyard in Gary.
Gary’s operational steel mill is surrounded by outdated incarnations of past steel mills, all of which is virtually inaccessible and fenced off, barely visible to the public. The acres and acres of artificial landscape in and surrounding Gary is both intriguing and alienating, a feeling only intensified by the newly constructed casino located directly in the center of the industrial land. In front of one of the factories sits an unfinished overpass leading to the casino whose construction began in 2012 but remains unfinished, hovering and already beginning to show signs of weathering despite never having been used.
An abandoned, historic U.S. Steel building in the foreground with ArcelorMittal in the background. The unfinished highway sits between these two buildings.
All of Gary exists like this; it is a timeline of its former selves; it is “American history in microcosm. You can see the 20th century of America simply by looking at Gary” (Sisson). The city can’t afford to demolish abandoned structures, so their future is ultimately left to the forces of nature. Streets that appear to be wooded with forests on either side, upon closer inspection, are hiding modest abandoned houses, seemingly untouched for decades. Gary remains ‘Steel City’ not only in terms of steel production but also in how it actively represents both the rise and fall of the industry.
Marktown, a neighborhood just west of Gary, is a company town founded by Mark Manufacturing in 1917. It is an island surrounded by steel and oil refineries, fighting for preservation as BP encroaches on its land. Architecturally, Marktown is described as an English village, with “pastel-hued homes with gabled roofs, where residents famously park on the sidewalks and walk in the narrow streets” (Pete). Like nearby Gary, Marktown’s history is even more endangered due to its small size and relative anonymity. Lacking any formal protection, the neighborhood is falling into disrepair. Marktown represents the struggle that is the direct result of deindustrialization- a failure to see the value and uniqueness of our industrial heritage after it has stopped contributing economically.
Marktown housing with the BP Refinery towering behind.
Marktown neighborhood bordered by the BP Refinery, ArcelorMittal Steel, United States Gypsum, Sargent Electric, and Praxair, Inc. Image from Google Earth.
From 1990 into the present, the Midwest has been painfully devoid of industry. There are currently nine integrated steel mills in operation in the United States, which was the number of steel mills in Cleveland alone as early as the 1880’s. Today, Cleveland’s steel mill is operated by ArcelorMittal, which owns vast amounts of land along the Cuyahoga River in south Cleveland. Upon visiting, it is evident that the operation used to be even larger than it is today; attempts have been made at preserving some of the heritage in the form of a ‘Steel Heritage Center’ and a shopping center called ‘Steelyard Commons’. While the efforts are commendable, the result is somewhat disappointing, if not fascinating, in some of the (unintentional) juxtapositions it has created.
Zoning seems to have mandated that businesses either preserve an existing steel structure on site or incorporate steel into the design, for a rusting utility bridge sits adjacent to a newly constructed Five Guys, Wal-Mart uses a series of steel trusses, not structurally, but simply to mark the entrances and exits, and Burger King’s sign rests atop a steel box truss. Among the chain retail stores, there stands a beautiful brick shed building that reads “ArcelorMittal Steel Heritage Center” which appears to have been closed for an indeterminate period of time. On the nearby railroad tracks sits a hot metal bottle car which was once used to transport materials between buildings. Like an open-air museum, the railroad car and the utility bridge have signs that explain their history.
The ArcelorMittal Steel Heritage Center, a building relocated in 2006 from a nearby steel mill to be used as a museum, ap- pears to have been closed for an indeterminate period of time.
A hot metal bottle car remains on the former steel mill site with a historic plaque adjacent to a walking trail. The operational steel mill can be seen in the background.
Steel heritage in Cleveland - a utility bridge adjacent to a fast food chain.
Carrie Furnace in Homestead, Pennsylvania has been given a similar attempt at preservation. The blast furnaces and associated historic brick factory buildings have been fenced off, open occasionally for tours but mostly just existing as a visual reminder of what once existed, arguably better than completely demolishing the structures because its monstrous presence does prompt curiosity, especially when viewed from across the Monongahela River, where one can almost imagine a time when it felt less empty. A ‘heritage center’ has also been established here, where very few historic remnants are scattered among retail chain stores.
Carrie Furnace, as seen from behind the barbed wire fence, where access is extremely limited. The field in the foreground was once covered with clusters of sheds and mills.
Effect
The effects of deindustrialization can be felt in different towns and cities of varying sizes throughout the Midwest, but the effects are strikingly similar. Places that once had double their current population are deserted, painfully devoid of industry and, naturally, devoid of the development that occurred as a direct result of industrialization. Abandonment, poverty, stigma, and a lost sense of identity pervade the region, and attempts at preservation have failed to effectively incorporate the industrial heritage into contemporary life.
Deindustrialization has effectively killed the Heartland. When industry moves in, other industries and businesses follow, along with increased population. When industry moves out, it has the inverse effect. Through the deindustrialization of the Midwest, we have seen how industry was powerful enough to create, transform, and ultimately destroy cities.
Abandonment, Poverty, Stigma, Identity
The term ‘Rust Belt’ first occurred in the 1980’s and was a transformation of the term ‘Rust Bowl’ which had been floating around for years. Both terms refer to the deindustrialization of the Midwest, a period we have established to have been marked by extreme economic decline, population loss, and urban decay. It could be argued that the term has hastened the decline of the region, for it has helped to produce a nationwide stigma that associates the Midwest with visuals of dilapidation, grime, and poverty.
“Deindustrialization just doesn’t remove the wages, the jobs, the pride—it removes that foundation that undergirds the churches, the social institutions. The soul of the city is tied up in industrial work and now, for most people, that work is gone” (O’Hara). Beyond the visual and quantifiable effects of deindustrialization, there are the psychological; “people go outside, see their city looking a certain way, and say, forget it” (Sisson). Lack of industry has led to widespread poverty and poor education which has resulted in high levels of crime. Gary, once an ‘all- American’ city, has completely substituted this former identity; in the early 2000’s it was named the ‘murder capital of the U.S.’, and other former factory towns like Detroit, Flint, Youngstown, and Cleveland never fail to top the list. The psychological effects of abandonment and poverty can be extreme.
Some of these cities and towns lost over half their population in half a century, and signs of any previous success or prosperity have been removed or left to collapse, resulting in a sudden loss of place identity, cultural identity and collective memory. The sudden shift from ‘Middle West’ to ‘Heartland’ to ‘Rust Belt’ within a century, with the stark contrast between the positive connotations of the former and the negative connotations of the latter has resulted in an identity crisis. With no signs of a former, different life, and no indication that the future will be any different, the region is consumed by a sense of hopelessness. In response to recent movements to predict and demolish ‘at-risk’ neighborhoods, CityLab writer Richey Piiparinen states, “We don’t know the future. Rust Belt cities need to stop planning that there isn’t one.” The article goes on to say that “demolishing a lot of houses might be removing that neighborhood’s chance to revive in the future” and this could be expanded to cover not only houses, but any infrastructure that could be reused or could contribute to the collective memory and history of place, including the “anonymous sculptures” (Becher) of industry.
“The traces of industrialization sometimes disappear swiftly, without proper research or documentation, thus threatening the important heritage of the industrial landscape that developed over the last two centuries” (Bergeron 218). Historic preservation and industrial archaeology are still relatively new fields, and the Midwest’s contributions throughout history have been largely overlooked.
The identity for the indeterminate future is that of the ‘Rust Belt’, evoking images of decay, weathering materials, and monstrous, inaccessible structures. The region must choose to either romanticize this stigma, using the ruins in new, creative ways, or risk losing both past and present identities, cultural heritage, and memories.
Gary, Indiana. Fall 2017.
An overgrown industrial shed in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, once known as “Tube City”.