If you stand on the banks of the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh, you can still hear the echoes of an America that used to build things. It is a quiet testament to a bygone era, the kind of place where the skeletal remains of old factories, once giant sentinels along the rivers, serve as a backdrop to everyday life.
For decades, the story written about river towns in post-industrial Pennsylvania and Ohio, or places like Macomb County, Michigan, and the small communities outside of Fort Worth, Texas, has been one of decline.
It is a familiar, weary Beltway narrative about the Rust… Read More in Real Clear Politics