Abstract
Change can be difficult for anyone. The psychological and social dimensions of community decline have been viewed among scholars as some of the most heart-wrenching and stressful types of change people face. Research in Youngstown, Ohio, showed how residents of a declining steel town grieved over the loss of jobs, residents, and overall prosperity (Linkon and Russo 2003). This concept of community depression builds on Robert Bellah’s (1985) communitarianism notion, where places are viewed as having memories, constituted inter-subjectively by residents, past and present. New Bedford residents continue to experience these emotional difficulties as they regularly witness the continued emptying out of neighborhoods. A famous study of former mining towns in Western Pennsylvania found that it took a generation before city leaders could fully accept that their mines were closed for good and take steps to plan for the future (Mayer and Greenberg 2001).
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Hollander, J.B. (2018). The Legacy of Change: Depopulation and Growth’s Impact on New Bedford Today. In: An Ordinary City. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60705-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60705-4_5
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