Coal Cultures by Derrick Price

Author:Derrick Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

The future of coal communities

In 2016, while running for the presidency of the United States, Hillary Clinton published a ‘Plan for Revitalizing Coal Communities’. This began by acknowledging the contribution mining had made to the American economy: ‘The hard working Americans who mine, move and generate power from coal put their own health and safety at risk to keep our factories running and deliver the affordable and reliable electricity we take for granted.’ This encomium was needed because Clinton had previously incurred the ire of miners by pledging to close down the mines and abandon coal as a source of fuel in the United States. The plan for the communities was designed to rescue them from the economic fallout of meeting ‘the climate change challenge’ by moving to sources of clean energy. The plan involved spending $30 billion on a range of activities designed to stimulate local economies. The strategy was intended to free up already existing assets, for, as the paper says, ‘From Appalachia to the Uinta Basin, coal communities have rich human and cultural capital, diverse natural resources, and enormous economic potential’. The investment was targeted at developing infrastructural projects, improving health and education, repurposing the landscape, as well as increasing investment and developing an entrepreneurial ethos.

We will never know how successful such a scheme might have been, but it is only one among many strategies that have been proposed to comprehensively revitalize coal communities when the coal has run out or been abandoned. Throughout the United States and Western Europe there have been numerous plans to develop infrastructure, reclaim land for parks or retail complexes, build tourism or establish heritage centres. Around the world, there have been many projects that attempted to regenerate erstwhile coal communities. Although each of these takes on a national or regional complexion, they face some of the same problems. The landscape of mining country has been despoiled, often over many years. The population has low educational attainments, and many lack the skills that are called for in modern life. As young people often leave to try their luck elsewhere, the population is ageing. Ex-miners, now getting old, are afflicted by a range of industrial diseases, and are in need of good medical care. These difficulties would be recognized in the Pas-de-Calais or in Appalachia as much as in Scotland or England. Indeed, in his 2016 documentary film, After Coal, Tom Hansell looks at the connections and similarities between individuals in Kentucky and South Wales who were trying to find new ways of life and attempting to revitalize their communities.

Former mining towns and villages, however, are not simply locations in need of social work projects and medical intervention. They still function as communities, and many of the values that derive from their most vibrant days are still to be found. For instance, the people in these communities always declare that they are very supportive of one another. The claim is that the camaraderie, intrinsic to the patterns of work in the collieries, has long flowed out of the mine into the wider world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.