From Steel to Slots

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once synonymous with steel. But after the factories closed, the city bet its future on a new industry: casino gambling. On the site of the former Bethlehem Steel plant, thousands of flashing slot machines and digital bells replaced the fires in the blast furnaces and the shift change whistles of the industrial workplace. From Steel to Slots tells the story of a city struggling to make sense of the ways in which local jobs, landscapes, and identities are transformed by global capitalism.

Postindustrial redevelopment often makes a clean break with a city's rusted past. In Bethlehem, where the new casino is industrial-themed, the city's heritage continues to dominate the built environment and infuse everyday experiences. Through the voices of steelworkers, casino dealers, preservationists, immigrants, and executives, Chloe Taft examines the ongoing legacies of corporate presence and urban development in a small city--and their uneven effects.

Today, multinational casino corporations increasingly act as urban planners, promising jobs and new tax revenues to ailing communities. Yet in an industry premised on risk and capital liquidity, short-term gains do not necessarily mean long-term commitments to local needs. While residents often have few cards to play in the face of global capital and private development, Taft argues that the shape economic progress takes is not inevitable, nor must it always look forward. Memories of corporations' accountability to communities persist, and citizens see alternatives for more equitable futures in the layered landscapes all around them.

Bethlehem PA was synonymous with steel. But after the factories closed, the city bet its future on casino gambling. Chloe Taft describes a city struggling to make sense of the ways global capitalism transforms jobs, landscapes, and identities. While residents often have few cards to play, the shape economic progress takes is not inevitable.
From Steel to Slots delivers fine-grained cultural analysis at its best--a study in which history is alive and fluid, and the community is humane and complex. Taft writes eloquently about deindustrialization without tears and grasps the new order without rage. This subtle book illuminates much about the past, present, and future of the urban landscape.--Jefferson Cowie, Vanderbilt University
A highly revealing and intellectually ambitious interpretation of a post-industrial landscape in flux. From Steel to Slots offers a fascinating look at the transformations that have occurred on the site of Bethlehem's once iconic steel industry and its implications for those who live or work in its shadows. This ethnographic account makes unique and important contributions to a range of academic literatures and will become a critical text for those interested in deindustrialization, post-industrial economies, neoliberalism, or 'casino capitalism.'--Christine J. Walley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
As a case study of the steel industry's decline and casino-based postindustrial economic development, From Steel to Slots offers up illuminating detail and storytelling.--Catherine Tumber"In These Times" (04/04/2016)