If you stand on the banks of the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh, you can still hear the echoes of an America that used to build things. It is a quiet testament to a bygone era, the kind of place where the skeletal remains of old factories, once giant sentinels along the rivers, serve as a backdrop to everyday life.For decades, the story written about river towns in post-industrial Pennsylvania and Ohio, or places like Macomb County, Michigan, and the small communities outside of Fort Worth, Texas, has been one of decline. It is a familiar, weary Beltway narrative about the Rust Belt and the forgotten middle. But if you actually pull up a chair, talk to the people on Main Street, and look past the talking heads on cable news, you will find that the American spirit has never truly left. It was just waiting for the right spark.
SALENA ZITO: MIKE ROWE IS ON A MISSIONThat spark arrived this week with the launch of “Build Freedom,” a new federal initiative out of the U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy that was announced on Wednesday and is designed to promote skilled trades in the United States.Build Freedom will launch this week in Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, with more states coming on later this year.Mike Rowe, television host, narrator, and public speaker, best known as the creator and host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs.
