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For years, the media has promoted a false narrative that worries about factories, the Rust Belt, and deindustrialization are limited to old white men. That is wrong: From Oakland to Cincinnati and New Haven, we have heard minorities lament the decline of manufacturing. In fact, in inner-city America, residents have repeatedly blamed high crime, incarceration, and poverty rates on that decline. Today, we see what that looks like on the ground.
By Max Frost
Akron, Ohio
Years of depopulation have left the streets of South Akron eerily quiet. Neighborhoods that were once bustling with workers of tire factories have fallen into disrepair. Buildings sit abandoned. But around 7 PM on November 7, 2024, a cracking sound shattered the silence.
The sound was a gunshot that struck Jamar Franklin, 20, while he sat in his car outside the Tasty Carry Out. Franklin tried to drive away, but didn’t get very far: He crashed and died of the gunshot wound at the scene.
We visited his neighborhood in Akron and spoke to the residents. What the conversations revealed was that this wasn’t a one-off crime, but the consequence of decades of deindustrialization and neglect.
In the 1960s, Akron was Tire City.
With a population of 290,000, the city’s tire industry employed 75,000. The city’s first rubber company, B.F. Goodrich, opened in 1870. In 1898, Goodyear Tire & Rubber was founded in the city; two years later, Firestone was, too. By the 1930s, Akron was producing four of every five US-made tires. In the 1940s, it produced the tires and rubber used by the Allies in World War II. Word of Akron’s opportunity spread throughout America, drawing thousands of black migrants from the South.
“My grandfather worked for Firestone for 40 years,” Leon Henderson, Akron’s fire chief, told Roca. “My uncle worked for Goodyear as a chemist for 36 years.”
“My dad worked at Bridgestone and Firestone for 42 years,” said Sierjie Lash, an Akron Fire district chief.
Their stories are repeated throughout the city. In South Akron, a grey-haired man in an automated wheelchair said the tire business was “huge for the community.” He recalled when the houses around us were “rooming houses,” populated by factory workers.
But it wouldn’t last – and then came the meth.
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Editor’s Note
Thank you for reading. We’re eager to hear your thoughts on this article, because we think the decline of the Rust Belt is one of the most important – and under-covered – stories in the media. Yes, everyone knows the factories left. But the media fails to acknowledge that most people didn’t leave, while “experts” assume it was all inevitable. But was it? That’s a question we’ve been exploring a lot lately and will be investigating here in the months ahead. Send in your thoughts here.
And don’t forget to check out our latest stories if you missed them:
We’ll be back tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your weekends.
—Max and Max
