Two Buildings and Two Towns: Comparison of Abandoned and Repurposed Plants

At the height of apparel manufacturing in the United States in the 1970s, approximately 24,500 establishments were operating within the country (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987). With massive closings since the 70s, current counts enumerate slightly more than 7,000 U.S. plants in operation. A noticeable number of closings also ensued in textile mills and textile product plants (Borneman, 2011). Two decades later, a similar pattern occurred in U.S. furniture manufacturing (Furniture, 2007). As these establishments tended to be clustered in the U.S. southeast in the 20th century, the burden of abandoned plant buildings looms large in many southeastern states