Archive for March 31st, 2009

By David Green
Morning Edition

Betty Esper spent 36 years working at U.S. Steel's Homestead Works. The mill closed in the 1980s. A few years later, Esper began her second career as Homestead's mayor. Photo (c) David Green/NPR

Some of the hardest-hit communities in this recession are the towns and cities that have lost jobs in the automobile industry — or worse, saw an entire auto plant close.

It’s a predicament the steel towns around Pittsburgh know well. They had to search for new identities after the steel industry buckled in the 1980s.

During a recent visit to the Steel City, I sought out some of the people who brought Pittsburgh through its hardest times to see if there were any lessons to learn.

From Industrial Mill To Waterfront Shopping

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Homestead, I found longtime Mayor Betty Esper. She spent three decades working in U.S. Steel’s massive Homestead Works, a sprawling mill across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh that shut down in 1986. She was elected mayor several years after the mill closed.

[ Full story available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102457292 ]