New inequalities in America's rust belt

Rust Belt America and its towns and cities continue to struggle and find new ways to facilitate capital accumulation during the current (post-2008) cycle of crisis in capitalism. It is a perversely creative process par excellence. Focusing on large cities and small towns, we tease out capital and the state’s processes that take advantage of what is left behind after the shrinkage of their industries, job and tax bases, and sources of revenue after rounds of deindustrialization. Here, global capital, like vultures, having recently wreaked havoc on vast disadvantaged populations in America and around the world in cycles of accumulation, now comes back to feast on the ruins (people, physical infrastructures, unstable economic bases, neighborhoods). In less metaphorical terms, capital continues its relentless pursuit for profit that takes it, in one more round of activity, to communities across the globe only to abandon them and later come back. Though much has been written about the behavior and logic of footloose capital in its earlier rounds of global relocation, less explored is how global capital today finds new opportunities in these left-behind spaces.