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llentown, Pa., set a grisly record in 2017, marking the highest number of gun-related deaths in the city’s history. In suburban Pittsburgh the previous year, two men opened fire on a dozen people in a backyard, killing an eight-months-pregnant woman and four others at a family barbecue. On Jan. 7, 2018, Detroit experienced one of its bloodiest Sundays on record: At least 14 people were shot or stabbed in various incidents, and two died, including a woman whose throat was slit.

Violent crime has plagued the Rust Belt in recent years. Consistently, crime rates have been higher than the national norm in this region — which spans roughly from western New York to eastern Wisconsin, including Baltimore and sections of West Virginia. Out of the five metropolitan areas with the highest per capita murder rates, according to CBS News, four are deindustrialized cities: St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and Cleveland. What is it about former manufacturing hubs that lead to homicide and other brutal crimes? Here’s how vanishing jobs, alienated neighbors and shattered hopes swirled together to create a toxic storm that continues to burden the most economically depressed parts of this once thriving region.