![]() The story of the Steel Valley pushes urban historians to accept rural communities and their residents as full-fledged actors on the metropolitan stage instead of merely green spaces waiting for suburban development. By explicitly focusing on the metropolis as a whole, my research provides a new model transcending the urban decay/suburban ascendance divide in favor of a more heterogeneous landscape that includes failing suburbs, gentrified city centers, and de/industrialized rural communities. The narrative traces the evolution of the ‘Steel Valley’ – Pittsburgh and its hinterlands in southeastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia – as residents and communities faced the turmoil caused by the decline of the area’s heavy industrial base. Mines, Mills and Malls is a case study of political and social development in twentieth century America from the perspective of the metropolitan region, a vantage midway between the local community and the national polity.
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