How My Hometown Has Changed

Mike expresses his deep concern for the political shift in his home state of Ohio, attributing it partly to demographic changes linked to the shale gas boom and the departure of educated progressives.

Steubenville, once an industrial powerhouse, had suffered a gradual and seemingly inevitable decline for most of my lifetime. Businesses would close down, and many of my beloved eateries would vanish. While I've accepted that things come and go, Steubenville was simply a place where more things left than have come.

However, around 2010, there was a sudden injection of success in the area, due to shale gas developments (i.e. fracking technologies that enabled gas extraction from the Permian shale basin) ushered in a period of much-needed economic relief to Steubenville and the Ohio Valley. For the first time in my lifetime, people were moving into Steubenville, not out of it. While I don't see fracking as a sustainable means of energy production due to its environmental impact, it was refreshing to see this brief period of prosperity in my hometown.

However, the reality of the situation is complicated. Much of the benefits reaped from this shale gas development didn't go to the city of Steubenville itself. Rather, many shale gas workers who migrated into the Ohio Valley settled in rural areas of Jefferson County, not Steubenville proper. This population influx was dispersed over rural areas, associated with a large influx of "country boys" who tended to favor “small-government” Republicanism versus the interests of urban enclaves like Steubenville and Wheeling.

This demographic shift became apparent to me during the 2016 US Election when breaking down Hillary Clinton’s starkly poor performance among voters in that region, who bitterly associated her with the corporate forces of globalization that undermined the steel mills and factories that once sustained these regions economically. Whereas Steubenville was a union-held Democratic stronghold during the 1980’s and 90’s, it and Jefferson County shifted red around 2000, due to the decline of the steel industry and diminished union influence over that time.

I'm talking about this because I'm seeing my state change, and it's not for the better. I can't help but feel a little responsible. Growing up in Steubenville, the measure of success was often "to get the f*ck out of Steubenville." We had this mentality that only the "losers" stayed behind. Alexandria, Louisiana, has the same vibe. It's trendy to leave your hometown for bigger, better things, like going to Ohio State or LSU. But seeing this phenomenon happen en masse, with an entire population shift and migration pattern, we are now seeing the net effect.