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Lifting Its Chin. Acting much like a developing country, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has begun to offer tax breaks, low-cost land and long-term 4% loans to new enterprises. Tempted as well by cheap river transportation and by West Germany's biggest floating labor pool (due largely to the mine layoffs), more than 100 foreign firms have settled in the Ruhr since 1961, including 63 Japanese companies and a battery manufacturer from Israel.
The changing Ruhr has become a prettier, more pleasant place in which to live. Pressured by labor representatives on company boards, the Ruhr's prosperous industrialists have built colorful high-rise apartments and cozy bungalows that rank with the best workers' housing anywhere. Krupp has steam-cleaned many of its buildings, August Thyssen has spent $10 million to control the smoke from its stacks, and the grimy company towns of yesteryear have turned into handsome cities. The rural aspects of the region, so long crushed by fumes and neglect, can once again exert their charm. And in many of the plants devoted to the new technology, the most notable sounds nowadays are made by slipping slide rules and scratching drawing pens. The Ruhr is still not a paradise, but it is no longer synonymous with purgatory.