> a suburb of Fontana
Hometown of Mike Davis and former home of a major Kaiser Steel plant. Fontana is a rust belt town in the sun belt.
There are photos of the abandoned plant here, along with this description:
http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/
One of the largest steel plants in the world once stood at this site in Fontana. The plant was originally built here in World War Two, to supply steel for Kaiser's wartime shipyards, which produced hundreds of ships on the west coast in just a few years. The plant, built inland from the coast to stay out of the range of enemy fire from the sea, was upgraded and modernized after the war, with a new 23 story high, $287 million plant built as recently as the 1980's. After three years of use, this most modern plant was bought by the Chinese at bargain basement rates. A team of 300 Chinese workers came to Fontana in 1993 to disassemble it, and ship it to China, where it was reassembled. Kaiser is no longer in the steel business. Portions of the site have been redeveloped, but portions of the old plant remain as ruins, mostly concrete slabs. Part of the site was turned into a major racetrack called the California Speedway, and part of the steel plant is still producing steel, operated by California Steel Industries, which processes steel that comes in from South America and elsewhere. Though a fraction of the tens of thousands that worked at Kaiser Steel in the old days, at 1,000 employees, this is still one of the largest steel operations on the West Coast. As one of the few remaining heavy industry sites near Los Angeles, the site is a common filming location. It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company.