a lot of jobs for a small place in southeastern wisconsin. but beyond that, wanted to be able to write about some place that had never been been part of the rust belt, because i wanted to be able to look at what this bad economic time in our country's history had done and not an accumulation of economic decay over a period of decades and janesville had gotten its general motors plant in 1918. started making tractors in 1919. just after world war i. and it started turning out chevys in 1923. and over the intervening decades, products had come and had gone, but every time a product left that factory, general motors sent in something else to replace it. so this had not been a rust belt community, and it really made what happened in 2008 -- two days before christmas of 2008 that the good morning plant closed down, something that was just unprecedented and in this town, and very hard for people to get their head around, that this time was going to be different. and i knew that no place i was going to pick would be exactly like everybody the countr