In the case of the USSR, its postindustrial difficulties were immediately obvious, even to the outside observer. In the UK and the U.S., postindustrial decline was more uneven. It was gradual in some places, sudden and brutal in others. It was not even apparent on the surface for most people at the national level, unless you lived in a blighted former industrial neighborhood, town, or city—like a Somerville or Bishop Auckland—where the collapse of the local economy was a reality and the rest of the country seemed to move on without you.
