The Revenge of the Rust Belt: How the Midwest Got Its Groove Back

For those of you who live in the Midwest such as we do, you know how first hand the impact the "Great Recession" has had not only on the economy but from a lifestyle standpoint.  The job losses, people relocating out of necessity rather than choice, and just a thick fog of hopelessness that people wondered if it would ever lift.  To some degree it has and to some degree it has not.

Whenever the low occurred and no matter how difficult it has been to endure and muddle through, there are glimmers of hope.  This piece in the Atlantic offers some of the hope and the rebound that is occurring in the rust belt areas.

• For the past thirty years or so, there have been two great running narratives about American manufacturing, both of which have been disastrous for the Midwest's economy. The first has been about the disappearing factory worker -- how by shipping some jobs abroad and replacing others with machines, companies have figured out ways to produce more goods with millions of fewer employees on their assembly lines. The second narrative has been about migration -- the decision by companies to move production away from once-booming industrial centers of the north, to southern states with weaker unions and lower wages.
• There's a relatively simple explanation for this recovery. When it comes to the price of operating a business, the Midwest is a lot more competitive than it used to be. As the Wall Street Journal  recently reported, the overall cost of doing business in the region, including factors such as labor and energy prices, is now about 96 percent of the national average. 

As an added bonus I found this WSJ article that captures the revival of one such steel mill in Burns Harbor, IN located along the south shoreline of Lake Michigan.

• Left for dead a decade ago, this 50-year-old facility on the shores of Lake Michigan has been rejuvenated thanks to an unusual experiment by its owner, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal.
• In 2008, Burns Harbor was "twinned" with a hypermodern mill in Gent, Belgium. Over 100 U.S. engineers and managers, who were flown across the Atlantic, were told: Do as the Belgians do.