Visualizing Deindustrialization

The birthplace of entertainers (Lucille Ball), musicians, (Patsy Cline) authors (Cormac McCarthy), and scholars (Henry Louis Gates Jr.), Appalachia offers a rich slice of American history. But it is often steeped in mythic lore and stereotyped as backward, uncultured and poor."

Tucked within the caps of the Appalachian mountains, eroded over the last 480 million years, are strings of small towns with families dating back generations. The stereotypical image of angled parking spots leading people into locally owned stores, small farms surrounding old white houses, and hikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The region, commonly known as Appalachia, extends from southern New York state to the northernmost borders of Alabama. Within the confines of this historical territory, sects of unique culture developed, defined by thick accents, traditional craft work, and folk music. Ideas of Appalachia have permeated the collective American conscience through the likes of The Andy Griffith Show, the Carter Family, and The Beverly Hillbillies. 

Yet, in recent years, through the popularization of memoirs like J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and increasing political polarization, popular opinion of Appalachia has declined. It is often viewed and portrayed as a region lacking education and rampant political incorrectness. A contributing factor to its falling image as a cradle of American culture is the economic downturn the area has been experiencing for decades. Over time, Central Appalachia, encompassing territory from North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, has grown more desolate as its traditional, labor-based industries have outsourced to areas with cheaper or better access to labor, land, and capital. In turn, the physical and cultural landscapes have undergone drastic changes over the years in response to declining economic opportunities. 

Traditionally, Appalachian workforces profited from the abundant natural resources of their surroundings– lumber, coal, metals, and nutrient-abundant soil for farming. Demand for these resources rose exponentially at the turn of the twentieth century as populations and material production rose on the east coast. Researchers at Appalachian State University explain the start of Appalachian industrialization:

"Beginning in the 1870s, northern speculators and outside businessmen carved out huge domains in the rich timberlands and mineral regions of Appalachia. By 1910, outlanders controlled not only the best stands of hardwood timber and the thickest seams of coal but a large percentage of the surface land in the region as well." 

During this period, commonly known as the Gilded Age, the burgeoning railroad, steel, and oil industries relied on Appalachia for capital and fuel sources. Here, industry patterns created a norm of private corporate land ownership in the region. Occupants made their living by working the land, harvesting resources which would then be exported to the rest of the country.

Originally Appalachian industrialization increased job opportunities and technological advancement to support its regional economy into the twentieth century. The unionization of the coal and lumber industries made careers profitable and safer. Yet, as these industries developed and brought the prospect of an economic boom to Central Appalachia, the seeds of decline were sowed. The natural resources of Appalachia that were historically a source of capital that wedged the region into the national economy would ultimately stifle residents who lost direct control of businesses as privatization increased.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), officially founded in 1933, was one such conglomerate that moved into Central Appalachia per a push by the federal government to modernize the area. Their focus would evolve to focus on increasing energy production in the United States post-World War II as suburbia boomed throughout the country and would push the consolidation of coal production in Appalachia. Whereas, previously, there was a reliance on hydroelectricity, the TVA saw the possibility of coal as a cheaper and more abundant energy source– a natural resource readily available in the region. Coal extraction was not new to Appalachia, as it was used domestically for decades, but “The change in the market for coal from traditional users such as industry, railroads and domestic heating to electrical power plants, and the depression of the industry which began about 1950, gave TVA dominance in the demand side of the market (hence, a monopoly).” 

Central Appalachia became dominated by the Tennessee Valley Authority through its iron grip on employment and natural resources during the twentieth century. As a result, the regional economy (especially those in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky) became almost wholly dependent on the TVA. The Authority saw value in the region both for its natural abundance of coal and the availability of cheap labor; and came to exploit these factors until, according to locals, “...TVA’s policies were severely undermining the wage structure in the coal industry, making it impossible for union operators to compete with operators employing non-union labor.” Residents of Central Appalachia had few other economic opportunities outside of industrial work in the years after the world wars. Yet, these opportunities became less and less profitable as the TVA settled into its exploitative practices. 

Furthermore, TVA’s presence damaged the transportation industries in the region by drastically decreasing their payments to railroads and inland water transport companies. Appalachian industries depended on the ability to transport their products out of the area to the rest of the country, and these interactions between industry and transportation were a large market in the region. But the TVA's focus on increasing profits here would bring more damage to local economies until the territories they occupied were no longer economically efficient, pushing the Authority to abandon them as a hub of production. 

Despite it only being one example, the economic model of the Tennessee Valley Authority is replicable throughout Central Appalachia in the early to mid-twentieth century. Appalachia became a region rampant with the exploitation of the land and laborers as its relative isolation meant few economic development opportunities for residents. Furthermore, people hesitated to leave the only place they had ever known. In turn, where industry persisted, those making it possible sank further into social stagnation and poverty as they approached the twenty-first century. 

In Appalachia, mines mechanized, and then shuttered. The timber industry has taken a similar trajectory, as has manufacturing, which saw growth from the 1970s through the 1990s as plants relocated to southern, less union friendly geographies, only to relocate again offshore in the 2000s.”

As the twentieth century came to a close, the industries that had dominated Central Appalachia for so long shifted toward increasingly mechanized operations. The technological innovations of mining, lumbering, farming, and the consolidation of industries in the region meant that businesses operating out of the area grew less and less dependent on the local labor force. The industrial sectors of Appalachia grew increasingly focused on maximizing profits throughout the mid-twentieth century, which turned to negatively impact labor unions, local tax bases, and income in rural areas. Returning to the example of the TVA, they began to solely focus their production on areas capable of mechanization, which were mainly in eastern Kentucky. Industrial towns that failed to adopt the technology that lowered production costs were eventually abandoned. The only way they were able to maintain any position in the broader TVA economy was by finding other ways to reduce their labor costs, often done by foregoing worker protections. 

Some scholars argue that the rural poverty of Appalachia stems from their geographic isolation. The inability of industries in the region to fully incorporate themselves into the broader national economy meant their profits decreased, leading to such rampant deindustrialization and outsourcing of production. Appalachia became very dependent on its ability to export natural resources, and when support for the industries decreased, both by lower demand and also changing environmental policy in recent decades, the resource-based industries were bound to fade out. “Foreign competition and product substitution are, of course, two important elements of the decline of the American industrial sector,” and the coal fields and lumbering businesses of the Central Appalachian region were some of the first to suffer.

Alongside transitions to other forms of energy besides coal and wood, the growing emphasis on clean energy and climate protection by political organizations and the international public in recent years has further damaged traditional Appalachian industries. The production and use of coal and lumber have immense negative effects on the environment, dramatically changing weather patterns and average temperatures around the globe. Therefore, in attempts to slow down the damaging effects of these harmful industries, governments have implemented preventive measures such as improved forestry management and carbon offset programs. The movement of many industries focused on resource extraction to more sustainable operations comes at the expense of workers or residents in surrounding areas. For example, “TNC sees their role as maintaining ‘working forests’ and supporting jobs in a more sustainable timber industry, leasing land for more recreational uses, and protecting lands for conservation.”

Overall, environmental policy has led to a phenomenon known as rentier capitalism, or when the company profiting from production does not contribute anything to broader society through its work. The shift toward sustainability in Central Appalachia has not created new jobs or boosted the economy for those who live there amid deindustrialization in the region. Instead, companies that have moved in to settle in the remnants of coal and lumber production are reaping profits through their minimal investments in the land. 

Climate change mitigation enclosures build upon ongoing processes of uneven deindustrialization to deepen existing inequalities.”

Mechanization put many Appalachians out of work, pushing them to grow more dependent on other forms of employment, which would change the economy of Central Appalachia and, in turn, the region’s physical and cultural landscapes. The patterns of industrialization and deindustrialization in this pocket of the United States have changed land ownership, which has bled into population distribution, employment type, and available infrastructure. As previously mentioned, changing policies surrounding the Appalachian industry have led to divestment in rural communities, contributing to rentier capitalism where the industries profit with no overflow into local economies. These industries, which include some of the old coal and lumber factories, have purchased most of the land in central Appalachia to fuel their production, leaving only 10% to 20% for private ownership by residents.  

The industrial model of the late-twentieth century encouraged absentee land ownership by businesses, who continued to profit off of Appalachian resources while decreasing their employment and contributing almost nothing to local tax bases. As a result, “Appalachia is sometimes likened to a ‘colony,’ a victim of the same forces of corporate exploitation that affect the Third World.” Therefore, when one drives through central Appalachia, they are likely to encounter small towns built around a central industry that have taken one of two paths: crumbling infrastructure or adopting a tourist industry to stimulate income. Cities in the area had few other options when unemployment rose and there were no new industries to tap into because “economic underdevelopment is associated with the external control of land and natural resources, which limits diversified growth and removes the wealth from the region.” 

The traditional perceptions of Appalachia as picturesque small-town America have transformed into an image of rampant poverty. But the issue stems from the presence, or lack thereof, of industry in the region. 

As of 2022, the poverty rate in Central Appalachia was between 15% and 22.4%, significantly higher than the regional average of 14.7%. As previously mentioned, Appalachia has struggled to recover the economic base that it formerly had. Many people have chosen to emigrate from the region altogether in search of more profitable opportunities, especially in the late-twentieth century. These trends have started to shift in the last decade, especially in South Central Appalachia around eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. 

Nevertheless, much like colonies around the world, the extraction of natural resources in Central Appalachia left little for residents to utilize for their personal economic development. The focus on labor-based industries has established patterns of limited skill and education accruement, which impact Appalachian’s employment opportunities into the modern day. Yet, for many people, it is all they know, and “people stay because they love the place, but they also stay because there are few other places that they can easily find a job or are easy to live in for poor and working people: as Tania Li argues, conditions of urban deindustrialization make urban places unaffordable and unlivable.”

Many regions of Appalachia have become landing pads for summer vacationers escaping the heat of more southerly states or people seeking winter sports in the colder months. The scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains promises visitors a unique experience full of history, culture, and activity. Yet, per research from Anthropologist J. Hope Amason:

“Replacing traditional production-based industries in Appalachia and the southern US are jobs in the service sector, often proliferated by the tourism industry, which has been seen as a means for new economic development and diversification in Appalachia. The decline in middle-income, full-time jobs in this region has been compounded by other factors, like the weakening of unions, the loss of federal and state-sponsored antipoverty programs, and the availability of prescription opioids, which has resulted in severe cases of addiction.”

The needs of a tourism-based economy require little in terms of skilled labor or high levels of education. In turn, there is little job security because of the industry's fluctuating seasonal nature. Tourism has served to prevent the accumulation of wealth in cities that adopted it in the wake of deindustrialization. On one hand, tourism focused on natural areas, like Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina, further removes land from the hands of residents, placing it under governmental control. On the other, tourism encourages absentee landownership and some forms of gentrification as wealthy visitors build second homes, driving up costs in the area while not feeding into the area’s economy or taxes. 

Increasingly, Central Appalachian cities are following a similar development model– one that harps upon the idealized Appalachian small town. The boutiques and mountain memorabilia stores that line the streets of places like Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, proliferate the presence of tourists, catering Central Appalachia to a revolving market of visitors instead of permanent, long-time residents. Furthermore, the rise of tourism means declining opportunities for industry to return to Appalachia because the workforce is cornered by these seasonal positions as tour guides, store clerks, or ski instructors. 

Other studies indicate that the loss of agricultural land, inflated land prices, increased pressure on local services, dislocation, and destruction of local cultures have all been negative side effects of recreational development.”

The slow and tedious process of deindustrialization had unknown effects on the Central Appalachian region. As the coal industry was bought out by large corporations, farms were condensed into conglomerate operations, and lumbering operations were shut down by government land reserves, the heart of American culture would collapse in on itself in an avalanche of economic decline. These changes seeped into the geography of Appalachia, both in visual representations of rural poverty and towns morphing into tourist traps that serve outsiders but neglect natives. While these trends are changing in some areas of Appalachia, the region is still struggling to recover the economy and tax base that it once had, and its urban landscape harbors both Appalachia’s history and struggles.