When I was a young business/labor newspaper reporter in South Chicago more than 40 years ago for the now-defunct Daily Calumet, I was entranced by the steel mills abutting the Calumet River and Lake Michigan. The men and women who worked there were Promethean heroes to me, flexing the metallic sinews for a colossal nation.
The steel mills provided jobs — but also belched smoke and other pollutants into the environment. Soon, most of the mills would be swept away by the economic seiche of globalization, recession and under-investment, giving a partial respite to the air and water but bringing massive unemployment.
