Savage State of Torpor

This is the most hopeful story I’ve seen in a long time. There are thousands of crumbling industrial and farming towns across the U.S. The steady decline of the family farm and the deindustrialization of the American workforce has led to a major collapse in these towns and urban areas, in all senses: population, average income, services, and so on.

The examples of Braddock, PA and Greensburg, Kansas, the town last year leveled by a tornado, portray much hope for the future.

I’m adding the Mayor of Braddock’s website to the blogroll on the right. He is an inspiration for sure. The video of the story is available at the PBS link below. Be sure to watch it!

Via PBS Newhour

Here’s a question that may never have occurred to you: Can a region of the Rust Belt become an eco-showcase, a model that could be exported around the country, even globally?

Can going green, that is, become a new American way to prosper, even confer a competitive edge in the global economy?

Consider an extreme case of decline. Just eight miles east of Pittsburgh, the once thriving steel citadel of Braddock, home to the very first Carnegie steel mill, the very first Carnegie library.

At its height in the 1950s and ’60s, Braddock’s downtown was bustling with businesses, a town with visitors from everywhere, and more than 20,000 local inhabitants. How many today?

JOHN FETTERMAN, Mayor, Braddock, Pennsylvania: Around 2,800. It’s probably the single most dramatic decline of a town that I’m aware of in this country.

PAUL SOLMAN: Mayor John Fetterman’s vision is to turn things around with a new competitive strategy for the global age: going green for health and profit.

Fetterman, from York, Pennsylvania, came here in 2001 with a Harvard degree in public policy and an instinct for sympathy. He found a population so desperate they were killing each other for pizza money. The dates of each violent death in town since his election in 2005 are etched in memoriam.

On the other hand…

JOHN FETTERMAN: This is the zip code here.

PAUL SOLMAN: 15104?

JOHN FETTERMAN: 15104, which, again, really just, again, for me emphasizes the level of commitment that I have for the community.