Chapter 3
The Human Cost of Globalization
Globalization didn’t just close factories in the Foothills Corridor—it uprooted lives, fractured communities, and redrew the very definition of opportunity for an entire region. While economists debated trade deficits and corporate leaders celebrated higher margins, the people who built the backbone of American industry were left holding pink slips and promises that never came true.
In the Foothills, the idea of a steady, honorable livelihood was not a dream—it was a reality, passed down like heirlooms from one generation to the next. Fathers trained sons on factory floors. Mothers managed payrolls or stitched garments on looms. These were not “unskilled” workers. They were highly disciplined craftspeople with a deep sense of timing, quality, and pride. And yet, when global markets opened wide in the 1980s and '90s, these workers were treated as relics of a bygone era—replaceable, redundant, expendable.
A System Designed to Abandon
The closures may have made headlines, but what followed was quieter—and crueler. There was no second act for the displaced. No coordinated recovery plan. No meaningful bridge from the old economy to the new one. People were told to retool, retrain, and keep going—but the tools were dull, the training shallow, and the direction nonexistent.
There was no glide path for displaced workers. No structural cushion. Job training programs were underfunded, misaligned with available work, or so generic that they amounted to little more than resume-writing workshops. Meanwhile, the jobs that did emerge—if any—offered half the pay and none of the benefits. Factory workers who once made $20 an hour with healthcare and a pension were now offered $10 an hour in warehouses, often part-time, with zero security.
This wasn’t adaptation. It was abandonment.
The Psychological Fallout
The Social Fracture
Globalization didn’t just harm individuals—it unraveled the social fabric of entire towns. Churches saw attendance drop. Rotary Clubs and VFW halls faded. Local school funding shrank as tax bases collapsed. Civic life, once robust and communal, turned quiet and anxious. People turned inward. Trust eroded—not just in government or business, but in each other.
Younger generations fled, not because they hated where they were from, but because they couldn’t find a future in it. This left aging populations without caretakers, hollowing out the human capital that once kept volunteer departments, mentoring programs, and neighborhood networks running. Community resilience suffered not from apathy—but from attrition.
The Unseen Labor
Meanwhile, the global supply chain that replaced local labor was often hidden from sight. The same companies that abandoned Marion or Gastonia opened factories in countries with no labor protections, poor wages, and dangerous working conditions. American workers didn’t just lose their jobs—they lost their ethical compass. They had to buy products made by exploited hands abroad, knowing they could have made them better and fairer at home.
This ethical contradiction deepened the trauma. People in the Foothills weren’t angry at the global poor—they were angry at a system that told them they didn’t matter, that their lives and contributions could be erased for a few extra cents of profit. And that anger didn’t find an outlet in healthy civic discourse. It festered, redirected at whoever seemed closest: immigrants, welfare recipients, or even neighbors who “got out” when you couldn’t.
And Yet, They Stayed
Despite it all, many stayed. They kept the lights on in communities others had written off. They coached Little League. They rebuilt old storefronts. They planted gardens. They raised their grandkids. These people weren’t failures—they were survivors. But they carried the burden of survival alone, with little recognition and even less support.
This chapter of the Foothills story is not just one of decline—it’s a mirror to the moral and structural failings of a global system that rewards efficiency over dignity, margins over meaning, and scale over soul. The people here paid the price for globalization’s fine print. And they deserve more than retrospective sympathy—they deserve a seat at the table in whatever comes next.
The question now is not whether we can bring back the past. We can't. The question is whether we can build a new kind of future—one that starts with the people who never left, never quit, and never gave up on the place they call home.
But before we can rebuild, we have to be brutally honest about what really happened. This wasn't just a story of lost jobs—it was a full-scale extraction operation that shattered the economy, the culture, and the conscience of a region.
Here's what globalization did to the Foothills Corridor—in real terms.
Globalization in Real Terms: A Hard Reckoning
Globalization didn’t bring progress to the Foothills—it gutted 40,000 jobs, exploited third-world workers, flooded us with junk products, froze wages against unfair imports and illegal labor, and piled on national debt through lobbyist-bought trade policies. Global Trade policy lays bare the human toll in western North Carolina’s 20-county Foothills Corridor, where a proud manufacturing heart was shattered by corporate greed and the broken promises of “free trade.” Sold in the 1980s as a tariff-free utopia, globalization instead delivered one-sided deals—other countries slapped tariffs, VATs, and limits on imports while the U.S. swung its doors wide open, leaving regions like ours to bleed.
The Foothills’ furniture, textile, and fiber optic industries, once the backbone of towns like Hickory, Morganton, and Gastonia, were decimated post-NAFTA (1994). Plants closed overnight, machinery shipped to China and Mexico, and workers—machinists, weavers, craftsmen—were discarded like scrap. Families lost not just paychecks but dignity; a line worker’s $20-an-hour job with benefits became a $10-an-hour warehouse gig, if anything. This wasn’t adaptation—it was betrayal. Beyond jobs, globalization fractured the social fabric: churches emptied, civic clubs faded, and schools struggled as tax bases crumbled. Young people fled for Charlotte or Raleigh, leaving aging towns to mourn their future. Depression, addiction, and evictions spiked, replacing the pride of a working-class identity with shame and despair.
The harm wasn’t just local. Third-world workers, paid pennies in unsafe factories, can’t afford the goods they produce—shirts, electronics, food—while facing conditions banned in the U.S. (e.g., 2013 Rana Plaza collapse, 1,134 deaths). Quality suffered; Foothills families now pay more for toxic, short-lived products, from chemical-laden food to defective tools. U.S. workers compete against this exploited labor and illegal immigration, stagnating wages (flat since 1990, per BLS data). Meanwhile, trade deficits ($680B in 2023) and national debt ($34T, 2025) soar, fueled by globalist corporations lobbying for policies that break the financial system. The jetset elite—Wall Street, lobbyists, multinationals—reap profits while the Foothills and workers worldwide pay the price.
This summary isn’t just a lament; it’s a reckoning. Globalization’s human cost—broken families, hollowed towns, exploited labor, and economic instability—demands action. The Foothills can’t undo the past, but it can reclaim its future. By building local food hubs, we replace corporate junk with homegrown produce, supporting local farmers and health. Trade schools can train workers for modern industries, outsmarting global competition. These steps, detailed in later chapters, start here: a refusal to let globalization define us. The Foothills will rebuild with its own hands, turning pain into power.
The cost wasn’t just economic. It was structural. And civic failure was next.
Chapter 4
Civic Apathy and Economic Extraction
The decline of the Foothills Corridor was not just the result of market forces or foreign competition—it was aided and accelerated by a profound failure of leadership. Civic apathy and economic extraction formed a toxic cycle: as local economies weakened, political will eroded; as political will faded, outside interests moved in to take what was left. The result? A region stripped not only of its jobs, but of its agency.
When the Lights Went Out in City Hall
In the wake of industrial collapse, local governments in the Foothills Corridor found themselves unprepared, under-resourced, and in many cases, overwhelmed. Budget shortfalls crippled their ability to respond. Staff reductions, deferred maintenance, and outdated planning frameworks became the norm. Many towns relied heavily on the tax base from manufacturing to fund basic services—so when the plants shut down, everything else did too.
But what made things worse was the erosion of civic engagement. Voter turnout in municipal elections plummeted. Civic boards and commissions struggled to fill seats. Young professionals left and never came back, and the leadership vacuum that followed often went unaddressed. In some towns, power coalesced around a handful of aging insiders more interested in maintaining control than charting a path forward.
When people stop believing that their voice matters, they stop using it. And in too many corners of the Corridor, that’s exactly what happened. Decisions were made behind closed doors, if they were made at all. Planning was reactive, not visionary. Grant money went unclaimed. Opportunities went unnoticed. And meanwhile, those with capital and clout began circling the region like buzzards.
The Rise of Extraction Economies
As local economies crumbled, larger outside entities—whether corporations, developers, or political actors—began to see the Foothills as a resource to exploit rather than a community to invest in. This wasn’t new. For generations, extractive industries had mined, logged, and manufactured wealth from this region, sending profits outward while leaving pollution and poverty behind.
But in the post-industrial era, the extraction became more subtle. Land was bought on the cheap by out-of-town speculators. Real estate developments targeted high-end retirees rather than working families. Hospitals consolidated under distant management. Local media outlets either folded or were absorbed into conglomerates that no longer covered local issues.
The Hickory Daily Record, began publication in 1915 under the ownership of the Abernethy family. Founded by John T. Abernethy, the newspaper served the community locally owned business with a commitment to local news.
In 1974, the Abernethy family sold the publication to Park Communications, a growing media company based in Ithaca, New York. Park Communications, which focused on small to mid-sized markets, integrated the Hickory Daily Record into its portfolio of newspapers, radio, and television stations, maintaining its local focus while expanding its operational scope.
In 1997, Park Communications was acquired by Media General, a Virginia-based media conglomerate, in a $710 million deal that transferred ownership of several media enterprises. Media General sold to Berkshire Hathaway’s BH Media Group, owned by Warren Buffett, in 2012. In 2020, Lee Enterprises, a media company specializing in local newspapers, acquired BH Media’s portfolio, including the Hickory Daily Record, in a $140 million deal.
Lee Enterprises continues to own and operate the newspaper, preserving its role as a vital source of news for the Hickory community. The HDR stopped being printed locally when it was acquired by BH Media Group. It was printed in Winston-Salem and shipped here in the mornings. This began affecting local reporting in a timely manner, because the paper had to go to press earlier to be prepped, pressed and ready to be brought to Hickory in the early ours of the morning so that it could be distributed daily to subscribers.
In 2020, during the Covid Pandemic, Lee enterprises reduced ithe HDR’s print circulation to just three days a week, and much of its content came from wire services—leaving civic decisions increasingly invisible to the public. By 2025, the local newspaper is essentially a website newspaper with no local presence.
As local reporting vanished, so did the public’s ability to stay informed about civic decisions, accountability efforts, and community investments. Trust eroded—not because people stopped caring, but because the institutions that once kept the community connected and informed simply disappeared.
Even philanthropy became extractive. Large foundations and grant-makers would parachute in, run a pilot project, hold a summit, then disappear when the photo op was over. Locals became subjects of research papers instead of authors of their own recovery.
The decline of local philanthropy wasn’t just economic—it was generational. Many of the original business owners who had been civic cornerstones sold their companies, often to outside investors or corporate chains. Their children, no longer stakeholders tied to the region’s success, drifted away from local commitments. As ownership moved elsewhere, so did the sense of obligation. What was once a tight bond between business leadership and community vitality became a hollow shell, with fewer local patrons willing—or able—to invest back into the place that built them.
The result was a region in which decisions were made about the Foothills but not by the Foothills. The knowledge economy bypassed local workers. The tourist economy displaced long-term residents. The health economy monetized sickness without building long-term wellness. Wealth was generated—but not shared.
Silence as a Strategy
In many towns, silence became a strategy—if not an official one, then a practiced one. The less controversy, the fewer questions. Local governments rarely challenged state or federal policy decisions that disadvantaged the region. There were no unified economic development strategies across counties. No shared procurement systems. No joint lobbying efforts. Everyone was left to fend for themselves, and as a result, most fared poorly.
Even where there were bright minds and good intentions, the lack of coordination—paired with a deep fatigue—stalled progress. Without energy, without youth, without organized public pressure, most officials learned to operate in survival mode. This wasn’t corruption. It was resignation.
The Hollow Core of Public Life
As civic life decayed, so did the region’s confidence. What had once been strongholds of public participation—chambers of commerce, town hall meetings, even high school PTA events—now struggled for relevance. The language of possibility was replaced by the language of limitations. "We can’t afford that." "That’s above our pay grade." "That’s how it’s always been."
This hollowing of public life meant that even when opportunities emerged—grants, programs, partnerships—there was often no one left to pursue them. Or worse, there was no trust left in the system to believe that pursuing them would matter. In this vacuum, opportunists thrived and real progress stalled.
What Was Lost—and What Can Still Be Reclaimed
What was lost in this phase of collapse wasn’t just economic—it was civic. The sense of belonging. The right to shape your town’s future. The belief that your hometown deserved the same shot at prosperity as any big city. When those things erode, rebuilding becomes exponentially harder. But they are not unrecoverable.
All it takes is one election, one coalition, one catalytic project to reawaken civic pride. It starts with people who refuse to accept decline as destiny—who show up at meetings, who run for school board, who launch initiatives even when the odds look long. And it continues with institutions that invest in people, not just projects; that build capacity, not just plans.
This chapter reminds us that civic decay and economic extraction are not abstract forces. They’re the result of choices—and they can be undone by different choices. But only if the region rediscovers its voice and reclaims its power to decide.
Because no one’s coming to save the Foothills, it has to save itself. And it starts by giving a damn again.
Personal Anecdote: “I Just Stopped Showing Up”
“I used to go to every town hall meeting in Newton. I was that guy. I’d read the packets, ask hard questions, stay late to shake hands. But around 2016, I just… stopped. It felt like nobody was listening. The same folks got the contracts. The same buildings sat empty. I got tired of hearing the word 'stakeholder' when I wasn’t being treated like one.”
— James, former civic volunteer, Catawba County
This captures the emotional fatigue that leads to civic withdrawal, not from disinterest but from sustained disappointment.
Regional Statistic: Turnout Collapse
Between 2010 and 2020, municipal election turnout across Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba counties averaged less than 16%, according to the NC State Board of Elections. In some towns, fewer than 1 in 10 registered voters cast a ballot during key decisions about bond referendums, zoning changes, or school board appointments.
This reflects both disengagement and a perception that decisions are made before the public ever gets involved.
Case Study: Fiber Optics & The False Promise
In the early 2000s, Hickory was promoted as the “Fiber Optic Capital of the World.” At its peak, more than 60% of the global supply of fiber optic cable was produced in Catawba County. But by 2008, following offshoring and industry consolidation, over 15,000 jobs had vanished in the region, and major manufacturers like Alcatel and CommScope drastically downsized local operations.
Workers were offered little in terms of retraining. Many turned to service jobs with lower pay, fewer benefits, and no pathway forward. The disillusionment wasn’t just economic—it was civic. People felt they had no say in what happened to their communities, even as their towns were used as promotional tools for industries that didn’t stick around.
Quote: “The Deals Are Always Made Before We Walk In”
“It’s like the public meeting is just the formality. The real decision’s already been made in someone’s office over lunch.”
— Retired educator, Morganton
This sentiment reflects a widespread belief that civic engagement is performative—not participatory.
Bright Spot: Valdese as Civic Counterexample
In contrast, Valdese has seen a grassroots resurgence. Local residents organized around downtown beautification, historic preservation, and the arts. With no outside consultant, they raised money for public murals, organized weekend concerts, and opened cooperative businesses.
Result: Valdese has seen an 18% increase in foot traffic downtown since 2019 (source: Main Street NC reports), with new volunteers showing up not because they were asked—but because they saw results.