Regional inequality has deepened across the country.
By Alec MacGillis
Mr. MacGillis is the author of a forthcoming book on how Amazon has changed the economy of American cities. He lives in Baltimore.
March 9, 2021
Credit.Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
When I set out to report a book on the problem of growing regional inequality in America, I did not expect that it would involve spending several hours on a cold winter day standing inside a large dumpster.
But there I was, helping a man named Keith Taylor toss all manner of trash from a giant receptacle to reach the treasure buried below: hundreds of bricks from the demolished headquarters of the sprawling Bethlehem Steel plant on Sparrows Point peninsula outside Baltimore.
CBS News
Movement turns abandoned housing into beautiful furniture, fighting climate change and growing jobs in the process
Baltimore-based lumber company Brick and Board is anything but run of the mill. While fine wood furniture often comes with an environmental price, their warehouse is full of wood from urban areas where downed trees and old buildings might otherwise ends up in landfills. A lot of this lumber was harvested around the Civil War, founder Max Pollock told CBS News Errol Barnett. And a lot of the trees that, you know, were turned into this lumber really started growing probably in the 1500s.