Why people stay after local economies collapse

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When local economies collapse, why do some people stay?

The neighborhoods that grew up around southeast Chicago’s steel industry have struggled since the steel mills began to close in the 1980s. Tens of thousands of good-paying jobs disappeared and local economies collapsed – yet some residents never left.

Through the voices of those who stayed, Drexler University sociologist Amanda McMillan Lequieu tells a story of economic pressures and powerful emotional bonds in these struggling neighborhoods.

As Republican candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance campaign through the Rust Belt this week, the residents’ experiences offer insight into how lives have changed in a former industrial heartland and what matters to those who stayed put.

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Stacy Morford

Environment + Climate Editor

Steelworkers line up for their paychecks at U.S. Steel’s South Works in Chicago in 1959. The mills paid good wages. Bettman Collection via Getty Images

Why people stay after local economies collapse − a story of home among the ghosts of shuttered steel mills

Amanda McMillan Lequieu, Drexel University

When southeast Chicago’s steel industry collapsed, the loss reverberated through neighborhoods built around the mills. Former mill workers explain why they stayed as the local economy fell.

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