In which our intrepid hero explores the empty streets of East Liverpool…
I was 21 in 1988 when I learned I would be moving to Ohio (to go to graduate school). I knew nothing about Ohio. The mental image I had was a jumble of snow storms and rubber factories, all with healthy sprinkling of “Rust Belt.” I discovered, of course, that Ohio is a wonderful and varied place—this blog itself is sort of an ode to the state. But it is certainly true that there is a Rust Belt and certainly true that Ohio is one of the states at its center. Ohio cities like Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Dayton, and others were thriving industrial cities. Ohio boasted steel mills, automobile factories, all sorts of heavy industry. Much of that is gone now and although new technologies and new businesses have replaced much of the heavy industry that went to Japan or Korea or China, Ohio has still not recovered from this transformation and probably never will. Many of the people who had steady factor jobs will simply never make the leap to an information-based economy. Few assembly line workers can become computer programmers. Ohio will always have this hole in it, I think.
Unearthed Ohio 