Read All About the Rust Belt Reinvention

Searching for signs of light at the end of the Rust Belt's post-industrial tunnel? Look no further than today's headlines. The movement toward modernity is alive, and making news.

Steel City Chips Away At Its Rust Belt Image

A Rust Belt Rebirth Buds Before Our Eyes

From Rust Belt To Innovation Zone

Forging Rust Belt Economic Appeals

The stories remind us that getting the nation's Heartland back on track is as much a PR battle as it is a campaign to update antiquated economic, environmental, and social agendas. Want more proof? Civic leaders in Erie actually formed a task force to spread the good word during a month in which visits by presidential candidates and a convention of GE shareholders are expected to attract the national spotlight to their town.

“We would like all [the media] to write glowing reports,” John Oliver, the president of VisitErie, told the local paper. “But I don’t know that we expect that. We’ll be successful if they don’t begin their stories with a negative first sentence.”