Towns and farms sprang up all along the canal’s path in New York... as well as in the nearby states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of folks set out to start new lives. And it didn’t stop with the Erie Canal... Railroads came next. They brought iron ore, coal, and other raw materials from the surrounding areas. Steel mills and factories were built. For generations, the region thrived as the hub of America’s industrial revolution... By 1950, 38% of the U.S. population lived in this region. It included eight different states – New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia. But the boom times didn’t last forever... As the decades marched on, American manufacturing companies grew more and more complacent with the monopoly over U.S. goods. Plus, the increasing number of job-entitlement obligations and onerous union contracts pushed these companies’ costs higher. Eventually, overseas competition caught up... Countries like China and Taiwan could exploit cheap labor to produce steel and other goods at lower costs than the U.S. companies. Even worse for these manufacturers, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to 20% in 1979 and 1980 to fight inflation. That meant U.S. products were much more expensive for foreign buyers, and foreign products – like Japanese cars – were cheaper for Americans.
The country’s manufacturing hub soon mutated into its “Rust Belt”... In the 35 years since Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale used that phrase in 1984 to describe the region’s abundance of rusting former factories, there hasn’t been much reason for hope. An era of deindustrialization swept through the region... Hundreds of thousands of employees lost their jobs. Thousands of factories shuttered their doors. Overall, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs fell by a third from 1969 to 1996. With no jobs available, people had little choice but to flee the Rust Belt. And they continue to do so... The city of Detroit alone lost nearly 30% of its population from 2000 to 2018. The U.S. opioid epidemic and two generations of hopelessness have taken a tremendous toll, too. It’s why Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are considered “swing states” that often tip presidential elections one way or the other. The folks in the Rust Belt so desperately need help that they don’t care which side of the political aisle it comes from... as long as it does. But today, parts of the Rust Belt finally have something to look forward to... America’s shale revolution. ‘HOOKED INTO JUST ABOUT EVERY PART OF THE ECONOMY’ Oil and natural gas deposits are full of “hydrocarbons” – a combination of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Methane is the smallest and most common hydrocarbon. It contains one carbon atom and
The folks in the Rust Belt so desperately need help that they don’t care which side of the political
aisle it comes
from... as long as it does.
64
July 2019
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