Abstract
In this study of industrial ruination, not just ruin, to focus on the ongoing process of declining industries as lived experiences, Alice Mah examines ruination processes and the continuing daily lives of residents in three places. Her observations and interviews were conducted in two cities in the proximity of Niagara Falls, respectively located in Canada and America; Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom; and Ivanovo, Russia. This research refers to Walter Benjamin’s ‘trash aesthetic’ in which cultural artefacts or spatial constructions of earlier times (tradition) are reflected to expose contemporary cultures (modernity), as the past embeds dreams and fantasies of the future which has become the present (Robinson, 2006: 29). Mah’s research elaborates on one of the most important urban transformations in developed countries, the shift from manufacturing to services, from the industrial to the post-industrial, from Fordism to post-Fordism, from the old economy to the new economy (Mah, 2012: 5). Based on Benjamin’s dialectic materialism, Mah’s research on declining industries, mainly constructed since the end of the Second World War and the Fordism period, examines the economic and socio-cultural consequences of post-industrialisation.
Two cities in the proximity of Niagara Falls, respectively located in Ontario in Canada and New York in the US, best known as tourist sites, were contaminated by toxic waste from factories until the 1970s. When the contamination was revealed, most of the chemical factories in the two border cities of Niagara Falls were closed. Although vacant brown fields left after factory closures looked empty, and the past contamination is seemingly gone, a number of chemical companies have remained in operation due to economic reasons and issues related to the remaining clean-up costs, and redevelopment plans have remained as critical community issues. Regeneration is made more complicated by different memories as well as the perception of risk in relation to contamination. Since many residents are associated with the industrial past in many ways, ambivalent feelings in terms of nostalgia and traumatic memories toward industrial decline can be found. These complicated feelings and memories show different attitudes toward regeneration plans.
The second fieldwork site deals with the relationships between the residential community of Walker and the Walker Riverside industrial area along the River Tyne, UK, which is known for its ‘glorious past’ of shipbuilding. Although the area was once the heart of UK shipbuilding, gradual shipyard closures occurred between the 1960s and 1980s due to a lack of competition with rising Asian countries. Its legacy of shipbuilding ended with the closure of the last theme park around the early 2000s. However, regeneration plans to replace abandoned industrial sites have been prolonged for a long time, resulting in the juxtaposition between the regenerated quayside in the city centre and the abandoned shipyards. Related to regeneration plans, there are generational, socio-economic, and gender differences in the perception of industrial ruination and redevelopment: regeneration plans are generally considered a threat to residents’ sense of community since they believe that it would serve only developers and the new middle class following gentrification, rather than residents’ welfare.
Ivanovo in Russia, formed as a socialist industrial city and famous for its textile industry, shows somewhat different landscapes from the other two cities of the West. Industrial ruination in Ivanovo is spatially more pervasive so there is no clear-cut boundary to residential areas. Compared to Moscow, the capital city of Russia, where the economic transition to capitalism in the post-Soviet era has created stark inequality between the rich and the poor, its effect on Ivanovo has not induced significant changes; though many industrial facilities have declined, partially working factories are still operating and their presence is everywhere. As the economy was regulated by top-down plans of the former Soviet Union, the textile industry has played an important role in maintaining Ivanovo’s economy and has been financially subsided by city-region government. Its ruination has widely affected daily lives in Ivanovo so people are either practically or imaginarily related to the persistent ruinations of industrial decline. Although Ivanovo regional government is trying to attract capital by promoting a new image of the city as ‘Russian Manchester’ and appropriating a similar image as other former industrial cities, the regeneration process is at a standstill.
Based on Mah’s analysis of the three cities mentioned above, two common characteristics can be found. First of all, although they seemingly look like abandoned residues of industrialisation, there are still residents who continue their everyday lives near or surrounding industrial ruination. Some industrial facilities are still operating and they are either directly or indirectly linked to people’s memories. From the perspectives of community studies, abandoned industrial facilities do not necessarily mean declining communities. The daily lives of people continue while surrounded by industrial ruination. They even produce more complicated relations among residents, public institutions, and private developers whose interests are contradictory related to the regeneration and call into question the contested meaning of community. In this sense, Mah’s research maintains a critical distance from some heritage studies, which focus more on the aesthetical values of industrial ruin than people’s lived experiences.
Secondly, uncertainty about future and prolonged regeneration defines the lives of people living in regional cities situated between destruction and creation. There is no stark break with the past, rather a juxtaposition between the past and the present is spatially embodied. The demolition of industrial facilities had taken place but many sites remain abandoned. Even when new buildings and houses replace them, they are seldom sold, and thus create more vacant space of a different kind. Unlike metropolitan areas where financial resources are concentrated and rapidly circulate, many regional cities with declining industries are at a standstill. Given that gentrification has become a ‘generalized urban strategy for municipal governments in consort with private capital in cities around the world’ (Smith, 2002: 441) since the 1990s, Mah, therefore, argues that a neoliberal economic development model which assumes a rapid replacement of a manufacturing-based economy to a post-industrial knowledge and service-based economy (2012: 201) does not present a useful remedy for old manufacturing cities. While many urban sociologists overwhelmingly pay attention to metropolitan cities and their spatial strategies at the global level, this research pays attention to deindustrialisation and concomitant spatial transformations combined with cultural meanings and the lived experiences of residents.
These places are neither merely objects of heritage which should be conserved nor totally dilapidated spots to be developed. The juxtaposition of the past and the present, the ruins and living people, industrial past and post-industrial present should be considered as critical urban phenomena. Although Asian cities are not included here, more cases from Asian cities warrant further examination since transformations in many Asian cities also create industrial ruination. In addition, this research shows how community study can contribute to critique the neoliberal development of cities.