Hollis seamon biography of william

What happens to a company town when its major company opts to neglect the town? Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town shows what went right and what went wrong when General Electric moved most of its businesses out of Schenectady, New York.

Once known as “The City that Lights and Hauls the World” because of its electrical and railroad industries, the Electric City enjoyed decades of dizzying, enviable success. Like other river towns upstate, it was a 20th-century, economic powerhouse that fueled the wealth and reputation of the Empire State.

But between 1960 and 2000, this company town would lose 30,000 residents, a third of its population, mainly through aggressive layoffs by GE. Schenectady, like so many other cities in post-industrial America, faced overwhelming forces that pushed it toward imminent ruin: flight to the suburbs; a diminished tax base; a corrupt police department; relentless political warfare; gang and drug problems in decaying neighborhoods; a b