From: | Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com> |
Date: | Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:41:50 -0800 (PST) |
Reply: | cpeo-brownfields |
Subject: | [CPEO-BIF] IBM, Endicott, New York: "Microelectronic Disaster and the 'Smarter Planet' Paradox" |
Microelectronic Disaster and the "Smarter Planet" Paradox by Peter C. Little Anthropology and Environment Society November 26, 2012Less than 300 miles northwest of New York City, in the Empire State’s Southern Tier region, is the small community of Endicott. Nestled along the Susquehanna River, it is known as the "Birthplace of IBM." International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) - born of a marriage between the Computing, Tabulating, and Recording Company and the International Time Recording Company - opened its first plant in Endicott in 1924. From the 1920s to the 1970s, the IBM-Endicott facility figured centrally in electronic innovations, and the surrounding community enjoyed relative prosperity. Since the 1980s, however, the area has experienced steady decline due to IBM’s disinvestment in the Endicott facility and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. When IBM sold its Endicott facility in 2002, the town was left with a collapsed tax base and a distressed workforce. My ethnographic research there began in 2002 as the sale of the IBM-Endicott plant was underway. It was then that I first learned about how, despite the plant’s closure, the specters of its business and technological innovations continued to haunt Endicott in the form of social, environmental, and health consequences. For example, with the IBM exodus, residents saw a crippling decline in local property values, the loss of jobs, and enduring environmental contamination problems that continue to be the target of many local public health concerns. As a former resident of the community who saw this debate unfold at my doorstep, I felt compelled to get involved with local grassroots organizers. Likewise, my research has not derived from some prior academic topical fascination, but instead from a genuine interest in the lives of ordinary people navigating a tainted, post-IBM economy and ecology. ... For the entire article, seehttp://www.aaanet.org/sections/ae/index.php/microelectronic-disaster- and-the-smarter-planet-paradox/ -- Lenny Siegel Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight a project of the Pacific Studies Center 278-A Hope Street, Mountain View, CA 94041 Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545 Fax: 650-961-8918 <lsiegel@cpeo.org> http://www.cpeo.org _______________________________________________ Brownfields mailing list Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org | |
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