Category: Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch || By
Johnstown isn't in the Mon Valley, but in the eyes of the national and international media, it's just another Hardscrabble Gritty Steel Town. From the Toronto Star:
Under the shadows of a steel mill's rusting carcass, a new Johnstown is slowly taking shape.
Quaint cafes and even an upscale bridal shop have appeared in long empty storefronts. Downtown lofts are being snapped up. Biotech companies and high-tech firms have set up shop.
Decades after heavy industry died, taking much of Johnstown with it, this Rust Belt community appears to be regaining its footing. An aggressive city planner, a creative redevelopment authority and tourism officials are trying to turn Johnstown into a postindustrial tourist center with a vibrant downtown.
As the home of U.S. Steel - once a giant, now little more than a logo on a football helmet - Pittsburgh was one of the wealthiest cities in the country, once. Now it's just a regional capital of the Rust Belt, with all the second-generation assimilation of a factory town that lost its factories. The children of the Polish immigrants now say "yinz" and drink Iron City, and absolutely everyone wears black and gold. It's hard to pass five people on the street without seeing one of them in Steeler gear, especially on Sunday. Some even wear it to church, which is almost as holy a communion as Heinz Field.
Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, with its depressed steel industry, are generally similar to Ohio, with blue-collar workers and a struggling economy. That region could favor Mrs. Clinton.
It's a Rust Belt state largely abandoned by the once-mighty steel, coal and railroad industries. Today, its biggest employers are the federal government, the state government and Wal-Mart, in that order.
All I want to know is who were the officers who talked Steely McBeam outta jumping? They should be suspended without pay for that negligence!!!
Bulldog - March 17, 2008
More for the Hardscrabble Watch files (though it’s about Scranton, not the Mon Valley, the rhetoric is the same, and just as meaningless):
http://postgazette.com/pg/08077/865785-176.stm
mon valley girl - March 17, 2008
I like how the AP article doesn’t mention that the most productive deep coal mine is still located in Pennsylvania – Consol’s Bailey/Enlow Fork operation near Waynesburg.
Wade - March 17, 2008
Now that Johnstown is doing fine, can we stop paying the Johnstown Flood Tax?
The Dude from West Mifflin - March 18, 2008
If we stop paying the flood tax, how will nerds in Johnstown get pants?
Webmaster - March 18, 2008
To comment on any story at Tube City Almanac, email tubecitytiger@gmail.com, send a tweet to www.twitter.com/tubecityonline, visit our Facebook page, or write to Tube City Almanac, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134.