在沈阳一间过去生产牵引机的工厂内，工人把熔铁倒进模型，制作铸铁栏杆与大门。就像东北许多旧时的国有工厂，这家工厂也无法在中国新的开放市场经济中竞争。这家工厂在1998年破产后，一名从前的员工买下穴状工厂内的空间，将它改成私营铸造厂。不过，厂内工人不能享受昔日社会主义时期的住宅及其它稳定福利。少了政府补助的福利制度“铁饭碗”，工人希望能转而获得股权。

A snow-streaked slag heap looms large in the lives of poor villagers in the Xinjian Coal Miners' Village. When winter temperatures fall to minus 20°F (minus 29°C), poor families regularly scale the steep and slippery 500-foot-high (150 meters) waste pile to scavenge for pieces of coal to heat their homes. With its large coal and iron reserves, Dongbei (the Chinese name for the Northeast) became the nation's center for heavy industry in the 1950s. Today, Dongbei is a rust belt, its once muscular industries falling victim to poor state planning and inefficient operations.

对新建矿工住宅区的贫困户来说，这个白雪蔼蔼的煤渣堆是不可或缺的。当冬天气温降到摄氏零下29度，贫困户常爬上峭而滑的150米高的煤渣堆，寻找未燃尽的煤块来为家中加热所用。东北因为蕴藏了大量的煤与铁，在1950年代成为中国的重工业中心。如今，东北则是“铁锈地带”，曾经强有力的国企都成了计划经济和低效运作的牺牲品。

When Nian Shifu moved into a model workers' village in the Tiexi Industrial District of Shenyang in 1956, he felt like a privileged patriot of the new China. Hired to work at the state-owned Shenyang Pneumatic Tool Factory, Nian, a veteran of the Communist victory over the Nationalists in 1949 and the Korean War in the early 1950s, was given a government apartment in the city's most modern development. Five decades later, Nian, 76, is on the verge of homelessness. In keeping with China's free-market ideology, the government intends to demolish the workers' decaying village and replace it with an upscale housing development. But Nian and some 400 other dwellers have refused to move, deeming the relocation payment inadequate. "We can't afford to buy a new house," Nian said. "If I moved out, I'd end up on the street." The government reacted by cutting off water and electricity to the units. "They're forcing us out," he said.

年世福在1956年搬进沈阳铁西工业区的工人新村时，觉得自己像是新中国的幸运爱国者。他是个退伍老兵，打过1949年的国共内战及1950年代初期的朝鲜战争，后来退伍安排到国营沈阳气压机厂工作，并在沈阳最现代化的住宅区分配到一间政府公寓。50年后，现年76岁的年世福却到了无家可归的地步。为了符合中国的自由市场意识型态，政府打算拆除破败的工人村，代之以高档的住宅社区。但年世福与其它约400名居民拒绝搬迁，他们认为搬迁赔偿不够。年世福说：“我们买不起新房子。如果我搬走，最后会流落街头。”政府的反应是对这些房子断水断电。“他们要逼我们走。”他说。

Hearts pumping faster than the oil rigs behind them, newlyweds ride in a garlanded car to a reception in Daqing, capital of China's oil industry. Meaning "big celebration" in Chinese, Daqing became a boomtown following the discovery of oil in 1959. With the local industry shrinking due to depleted oil deposits, the former security of refinery work is lost to most of the current generation, descendants of the model workers. If they're lucky, they'll find a future in the region's new boom fields of software, tourism, and telecommunications. ()