Industrial Restructuring and Urban Change in the Pittsburgh Region: Developmental, Ecological, and Socioeconomic Trade-offs
2005
William Haller
This article traces the steel industry's restructuring during the 1980s and its consequences for older industrial regions tied historically to steel production. These regions contained large working-class communities that declined because of deindustrialization and restructuring. This article first examines the transition of the steel industry from its roots in extractive and primary manufacturing to a scrap-recycling industry that minimizes labor and raw material inputs. This transition parallels the structural changes in other industries addressed by political economic perspectives, such as the new international division of labor and globalization of production. The article then focuses on the socioeconomic and structural changes, using the Pittsburgh region as an example, including the employment and land-use consequences of deindustrialization and the relationship between losses in manufacturing employment and increases in persistent joblessness and poverty associated with growth of the urban underclass.
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