Amy Goldstein

It was a town that was centered around one large production plant supported by other companies that supplied it, then one day the plant closed, and the town changed. Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein shows how the closing of a General Motors assembly plant affected one small Wisconsin town over five years as those laid off, their families, and others in the community.

Goldstein followed three families affected by the closing of the GM plant either directly or a supplier leaving town once the plant was gone as well as various individuals in the town including the town’s most famous resident, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Over the course of almost 300 pages people must deal with finding a new job whether they went back to school to retain or not, some must make decisions on if they want to continue to work for GM but states away and if so to commute or leave Janesville, children learn to help out their parents with multiple jobs with the unintended consequence of reducing state aid available to the family because policy changes and budget cuts by the new governor because their household income is too high, and a once close knit community is divided between the haves and have nots. As with all things dealing with real life, it’s not pretty, especially as everyone written about must deal with the emotional and mental affects of dealing with something they’d never thought about before.

Janesville: An American Story is a look at one section of the Midwest Rust Belt that have been devastated by economic factors out of their control and how a town tried to respond. Amy Goldstein is an excellent job showing a cross-section of the affected community and how they dealt with the fallout of a town’s largest employer closing.… (meer)

This didn't turn out to be what I was expecting. From the jacket: "This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its factory stills - but it's not the familiar tale." Actually, it rather did turn out to be the "familiar tale." I was expecting much more big-picture information about different entities remaking Janesville. And I applaud Goldstein for giving us rather intimate pictures of key individuals and the varying ways their lives changed, but I feel like the conclusions chapter was eliminated from the book. The only tidbit that matched my expectation was the description of how job retraining really doesn't (or didn't in this case) help move unemployed into new jobs. If you enjoy reading about individuals and their stories, you will enjoy this book. If, like me, you want more analysis, you'll have to keep searching.… (meer)