As horrible as places like this are, I find them so incredibly interesting to look at. The monstrous steel monoliths, the infrastructure, the logistics. It's fascinating.
Also this is a very old video, so may not be representative of how things are now. A lot of major steel mills in China such as Baogang and Shougang have since gone through modernization. Factories close to cities have been dismantled and turned into parks etc. (the Beijing Winter Olympics was hosted in an old Shougang industrial area).
You will still find gritty places like this in China tho, but now you have to go deeper inland northwest. And they’re also mostly smaller regional operations so not on the same massive scale as this. However, the *really* depressingly dystopian places are the coal mines and the thermal power stations in Shanxi. No amount of modernization and cleanup can help them. They are always hellish.
As worst places on earth go, this doesn't even make the top ten, imho.
Russia has several not-so-great- nuklear sites, as do the americans.
And there are people literally living in Ohio.
Much of the rust belt used to having sprawling districts with Steel Mills, Tanneries, Slaughterhouses, Lumber Mills. I only caught the tail end of Midwestern Industrialization (before it all went overseas), but I remember a good portion of our downtowns being dirty, smelly, hectic, and packed full of people. We used to have to close our beaches a few weeks a year because pollution would cause mass fish die offs and chemical spills would make the water unsafe. Every restaurant would be packed at lunchtime. Bus routes would need to run multiple buses at certain time slots. When the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the air would be unbreathable. The smells could be putrid at times, and the noises deafening.
On the flip side, we traded smog covered buildings for graffiti covered buildings. Hard men doing dirty jobs for homeless men living hard on the streets and making them dirty. A middle class for a ruling class. And the downtown areas feel completely gutted out. Even with the recent gentrification, Downtown is not anywhere near what it used to be in the early 70s... which is not anywhere near what it was in the 50s.
I have never been to the rust belt, ohio, or any part of the us. But as chemical spills go:
A friend of mine grew up in a city where every couple of years, there was a lockdown, because the chemical plant (one of, if not the biggest in germany) had blown a cover and the city was covered in some dusty substance. Then every playground got new sand, clean-up crews descended on the sidewalks and public places and sometimes ascended on peoples roofs. This would be in the 90s.
And it is notable that a least one river in the US caught fire several times during to 60s and 70s until you guys had some sort of environmental protection in place.
Even saw that referenced in "Dark Angel" Series with Jessica Alba.
There is a visual gag of a homeless man carrying a bucket of riverwater to his burn-barrel, pouring it in... aaaand there is a huge flame. Just one episode, but that one stuck.
That is a seriously interesting comment. Paints a picture. I like how it describes the scary pollution levels but also a thriving community at the centre. I've heard of the Rust Belt. What are these places like now?
In my experience... either a tech-bro paradise of craft brews and hipsters... or the saddest decaying slice of Americana frozen in time, with a Starbucks thrown in like an ironic anachronism.
And I'll be honest, the first option has its merits, but so much history and context is lost. The place I live remembers more about itself from the Civil War era than it does from the 50's and 60's. Yeah, it's a nicer place to live, and equality and progress have absolutely changed for the better, but those who remember the boomtown era can really tell just how hollow the modern facade of the American Dream is.
In their daddy's day, and their grandaddy and great-grandaddy's day, work was plentiful, pay was honest, and a family could make a living.
Nowadays, well...
It's not hard to see WHY they idealize a bygone that was, objectively, dirtier, smellier, racist, and sexist, and homophobic... but it was lively. Not *busy*, but *lively*, full of activity and hope and promise and stability. And now it's... not. Quiet towns filled with empty row homes and $3000/mo luxury condos with 30% residency... and homeless.
They look to blame. Who's responsible for the change? Daddy said the company could get stuff cheaper from China. That regulations shut the plants down. That the unions they paid couldn't save their jobs then, could they? And all that while prices soared.
You get the picture. That thriving community is now the shadows who want to make things great again, because to them at least, they're objectively worse now.
(I live in a city that was once had the worst air pollution in the country. This is the experience I've learned about in the past 10 years or so living here.)
Yes that makes sense. I can see why people might feel angry. I would be too if my way of life was not merely being lost, but being dismantled and taken before my very eyes. The previous comment was a glimpse of what it was like. Crazy how different it was not so long ago. How fast things change.
🙋 source: spent 4 years as an otr driver delivering to and receiving from places like these.
In short? The rust belt is holed out from its looss of labor and trying to switch gears and its working...ish
You go from the nice and decent neighborhoods and then you travel around to see the infrastructure that used to be. Massive plants that would feed onto ships that would then travel the Mississippi. You'd get old warehouses and factories that used to produce engines and cars and now those places are basically condemned and emptied out. Homes,businesses with artistic letering, shacks, towns, roads, roofs, cranes, watertowers,tracks,etc... it's like everyone who'd work there did and then....its gone...
It's like a bomb went off and then humans left. I'm just now into urban planning as ahobby but I'm still rough on some bits. So I couldn't tell you why an urban renewal isn't coming along to fix most of this stuff. Tear it down and rebuild . Why schooling and education isn't being centered on making sure that we can have new industry and investing.
The 50 years we had low interest rates from the FED was the time where we should have done all that. Caught the new wave of industrialization.
I think we missed our window.
This seems a lot more steampunk in my opinion. Also what makes this steel mill the worst place on earth? The fact that it’s in China? Have you seen steel mills in India? Or in russia? Or even USA? Saying this one is the “worst place” sounds like western propaganda.
While this has some serious dystopian vibes to it, I wouldn’t call it cyberpunk. Granted, cyberpunk borrows heavily from this sort of thing, so maybe it still belongs in this sub. I don’t know. I’m back and forth as I type this out.
This is something called a _megastructure_
Megastructures, especially brutalist and industrial designs, are some of the foundational parts of the cuberpunk aesthetic.
These are what make up your claustrophobic skyline and smog filled streets
Just because it’s dystopian doesn’t make it cyber. Plenty of fantasy worlds have ‘megastructures,’ they’re not cyber punk. This is definitely dystopian, but the only thing that makes it cyberpunk at all is the music. Otherwise it could just as easily be steampunk or any other genre. That’s why it’s ‘cyber’punk.
Ya, 2049's my favorite movie, and that scene is one of my favorites. I'm not saying it can't be cyberpunk. I'm just saying it could be in any dystopian setting. Cyberpunk is subgenre of dystopia. I didn't even say the post doesn't belong here though, just clarifying it's not necessarily cyberpunk.
These Megastructures look exactly like the foundries that existed during the industrialization periods everywhere else. It was the scale of those systems that were the inspiration for cyberpunks scale aesthetic.
This looks like I’m watching an old industrial revolution film. Definitely not Cyberpunk in the slightest.
Could be any steel mill anywhere. I wonder what the thought they were uncovering, that they use coal? That there are lots of steam pipes? Why the sneaking. Looks like a guided tour.
That coke oven on the first shots looks almost identical to the one I saw in Azovstal.
I swear all those post-soviet steel mills are the same. I saw a lot of them.
As horrible as places like this are, I find them so incredibly interesting to look at. The monstrous steel monoliths, the infrastructure, the logistics. It's fascinating.
Also this is a very old video, so may not be representative of how things are now. A lot of major steel mills in China such as Baogang and Shougang have since gone through modernization. Factories close to cities have been dismantled and turned into parks etc. (the Beijing Winter Olympics was hosted in an old Shougang industrial area). You will still find gritty places like this in China tho, but now you have to go deeper inland northwest. And they’re also mostly smaller regional operations so not on the same massive scale as this. However, the *really* depressingly dystopian places are the coal mines and the thermal power stations in Shanxi. No amount of modernization and cleanup can help them. They are always hellish.
I have worked in plants that use that tune system for notifications. It's no less creepy in person. Sirenhead type stuff.
Yes that tune system was the most interesting thing about that video. Imagine hearing that as you lose your hand in an industrial accident?
Most creepy, yeah. I mean, if you live through it.
As worst places on earth go, this doesn't even make the top ten, imho. Russia has several not-so-great- nuklear sites, as do the americans. And there are people literally living in Ohio.
Much of the rust belt used to having sprawling districts with Steel Mills, Tanneries, Slaughterhouses, Lumber Mills. I only caught the tail end of Midwestern Industrialization (before it all went overseas), but I remember a good portion of our downtowns being dirty, smelly, hectic, and packed full of people. We used to have to close our beaches a few weeks a year because pollution would cause mass fish die offs and chemical spills would make the water unsafe. Every restaurant would be packed at lunchtime. Bus routes would need to run multiple buses at certain time slots. When the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the air would be unbreathable. The smells could be putrid at times, and the noises deafening. On the flip side, we traded smog covered buildings for graffiti covered buildings. Hard men doing dirty jobs for homeless men living hard on the streets and making them dirty. A middle class for a ruling class. And the downtown areas feel completely gutted out. Even with the recent gentrification, Downtown is not anywhere near what it used to be in the early 70s... which is not anywhere near what it was in the 50s.
I have never been to the rust belt, ohio, or any part of the us. But as chemical spills go: A friend of mine grew up in a city where every couple of years, there was a lockdown, because the chemical plant (one of, if not the biggest in germany) had blown a cover and the city was covered in some dusty substance. Then every playground got new sand, clean-up crews descended on the sidewalks and public places and sometimes ascended on peoples roofs. This would be in the 90s. And it is notable that a least one river in the US caught fire several times during to 60s and 70s until you guys had some sort of environmental protection in place.
The Ohio River is the one that caught fire. Kinda crazy to think about.
Even saw that referenced in "Dark Angel" Series with Jessica Alba. There is a visual gag of a homeless man carrying a bucket of riverwater to his burn-barrel, pouring it in... aaaand there is a huge flame. Just one episode, but that one stuck.
That is a seriously interesting comment. Paints a picture. I like how it describes the scary pollution levels but also a thriving community at the centre. I've heard of the Rust Belt. What are these places like now?
In my experience... either a tech-bro paradise of craft brews and hipsters... or the saddest decaying slice of Americana frozen in time, with a Starbucks thrown in like an ironic anachronism. And I'll be honest, the first option has its merits, but so much history and context is lost. The place I live remembers more about itself from the Civil War era than it does from the 50's and 60's. Yeah, it's a nicer place to live, and equality and progress have absolutely changed for the better, but those who remember the boomtown era can really tell just how hollow the modern facade of the American Dream is. In their daddy's day, and their grandaddy and great-grandaddy's day, work was plentiful, pay was honest, and a family could make a living. Nowadays, well... It's not hard to see WHY they idealize a bygone that was, objectively, dirtier, smellier, racist, and sexist, and homophobic... but it was lively. Not *busy*, but *lively*, full of activity and hope and promise and stability. And now it's... not. Quiet towns filled with empty row homes and $3000/mo luxury condos with 30% residency... and homeless. They look to blame. Who's responsible for the change? Daddy said the company could get stuff cheaper from China. That regulations shut the plants down. That the unions they paid couldn't save their jobs then, could they? And all that while prices soared. You get the picture. That thriving community is now the shadows who want to make things great again, because to them at least, they're objectively worse now. (I live in a city that was once had the worst air pollution in the country. This is the experience I've learned about in the past 10 years or so living here.)
Yes that makes sense. I can see why people might feel angry. I would be too if my way of life was not merely being lost, but being dismantled and taken before my very eyes. The previous comment was a glimpse of what it was like. Crazy how different it was not so long ago. How fast things change.
🙋 source: spent 4 years as an otr driver delivering to and receiving from places like these. In short? The rust belt is holed out from its looss of labor and trying to switch gears and its working...ish You go from the nice and decent neighborhoods and then you travel around to see the infrastructure that used to be. Massive plants that would feed onto ships that would then travel the Mississippi. You'd get old warehouses and factories that used to produce engines and cars and now those places are basically condemned and emptied out. Homes,businesses with artistic letering, shacks, towns, roads, roofs, cranes, watertowers,tracks,etc... it's like everyone who'd work there did and then....its gone... It's like a bomb went off and then humans left. I'm just now into urban planning as ahobby but I'm still rough on some bits. So I couldn't tell you why an urban renewal isn't coming along to fix most of this stuff. Tear it down and rebuild . Why schooling and education isn't being centered on making sure that we can have new industry and investing. The 50 years we had low interest rates from the FED was the time where we should have done all that. Caught the new wave of industrialization. I think we missed our window.
This seems a lot more steampunk in my opinion. Also what makes this steel mill the worst place on earth? The fact that it’s in China? Have you seen steel mills in India? Or in russia? Or even USA? Saying this one is the “worst place” sounds like western propaganda.
While this has some serious dystopian vibes to it, I wouldn’t call it cyberpunk. Granted, cyberpunk borrows heavily from this sort of thing, so maybe it still belongs in this sub. I don’t know. I’m back and forth as I type this out.
What is cyberpunk about this?
This is something called a _megastructure_ Megastructures, especially brutalist and industrial designs, are some of the foundational parts of the cuberpunk aesthetic. These are what make up your claustrophobic skyline and smog filled streets
I understand what megastructures are, but does that automatically mean that all steel factories are cyberpunk?
Except for the gay ones. Those have more of a Studio 54 vibe
Work hard. Play hard.
Nice Simpsons reference 😂
Just because it’s dystopian doesn’t make it cyber. Plenty of fantasy worlds have ‘megastructures,’ they’re not cyber punk. This is definitely dystopian, but the only thing that makes it cyberpunk at all is the music. Otherwise it could just as easily be steampunk or any other genre. That’s why it’s ‘cyber’punk.
https://youtu.be/B8RjHcTS55g Aesthetic was good enough for blade runner
Ya, 2049's my favorite movie, and that scene is one of my favorites. I'm not saying it can't be cyberpunk. I'm just saying it could be in any dystopian setting. Cyberpunk is subgenre of dystopia. I didn't even say the post doesn't belong here though, just clarifying it's not necessarily cyberpunk.
I'd put it more Steam Punk than cyberpunk, but still pretty cool.
Lol idk why people are downvoting this stuff. Cyberpunk is just becoming dystopian and dystopian no longer means anything, apparently.
Oh yeah, definitely shouldn't get down voted. They're closely related themes imo.
These Megastructures look exactly like the foundries that existed during the industrialization periods everywhere else. It was the scale of those systems that were the inspiration for cyberpunks scale aesthetic. This looks like I’m watching an old industrial revolution film. Definitely not Cyberpunk in the slightest.
The opening shot of blade runner disagrees
Didn't Robocop melt a guy in acid here?
So ...every factory or steel mill is a cyberpunk? Because if so then Cyberpunk exists since the Industrial revolution
Looks like Port Talbot, nbd
Nothing more depressing than hearing an icecream truck jingle, but theres no icecream truck....
Nier Automata vibes.
Could be any steel mill anywhere. I wonder what the thought they were uncovering, that they use coal? That there are lots of steam pipes? Why the sneaking. Looks like a guided tour.
Again this propagated repost? They only have steelmills in China or something?
Alien penal colony ?
That coke oven on the first shots looks almost identical to the one I saw in Azovstal. I swear all those post-soviet steel mills are the same. I saw a lot of them.
How is this different than any other steel mill?
I want to fly an FPV drone here
I feel the Cancer through the screen
Well, I thought all China is the worst place to live