Reply #6: Been watching it happen since the 70s

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

Grew up in a Midwest factory town, a rail hub that made it a center for manufacturing and a place for growth. Farmlands bought up for big plants and housing developments, but still so many fields you could drive through the country for hours. So many jobs that workers swarmed up from the South. Southerners worked at the union plants, Mexicans worked the non-union jobs. I could tell by listening if someone was from Mississippi or Missouri, Texas or Georgia, Arkansas or Tennessee.

Unions organized. Owners began moving shops down South and the job boom went bust. Some Southerners followed the jobs back home but others stayed, as did the Mexicans. Downtown died. Old inner city neighborhoods started getting slummy. Vigilantes slapped stickers on city limit signs that read "Wetback City."

Reagan led the union busters and what union shops were left had trouble negotiating decent contracts. "Take-aways" became standard, and a good contract was marked not by what the workers gained but by what they managed to keep. More plants moved South, and southern plants started moving to Mexico. In return, Mexico sent up heroin. That's the railroad that replaced industry in my hometown, which became a major stop for drugs.

The town did turn around some thanks to housing growth fueled by commuter access to the big city. There are still some factories and a few of them still have unions, but you are more likely to get a job in retail or healthcare - consumption industries as opposed to production.

I don't go back there anymore.