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New York Times
31-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
The Gem of a Town in North Carolina That Powers the World's Tech
ACROSS THE COUNTRY Residents have a saying in Spruce Pine, that a piece of their home is in tech across the globe. But could geopolitical tensions hurt their mining tradition, and their lucrative quartz business? WHY WE'RE HERE We're exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. In Spruce Pine, N.C., a vast deposit of quartz has turned this small mountain town into an economic treasure. By Eduardo Medina Photographs by Mike Belleme Eduardo Medina reported from Spruce Pine, N.C., and took home a piece of amazonite. The jagged ridges in the green mountains above Spruce Pine look strange at first, as if they were scratched into the surface by giant claws. From afar, visitors sometimes confuse them for snow. In fact, they are mines that hold some of the world's purest quartz, a smoky gray mineral that is essential for manufacturing silicon wafers that eventually become computer chips in smartphones and other high-tech products. No other place on Earth has as much or as minable pure quartz as Spruce Pine, in western North Carolina. It's a geological Goldilocks, as raw minerals are in high demand and China is tightening its grip on mineral exports in its trade war with the Trump administration. Two European companies operate the mines with much secrecy, and are responsible for almost the entire global market of high-purity quartz, according to industry experts. Tell Us About Where You Live Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
08-03-2025
- New York Times
2 Books From Other Shores
Image Credit... Mike Belleme for The New York Times Dear readers, I'm not going to get into the various reasons you might have for wanting to go somewhere else right now — somewhere, let's say, on the other side of an international border. The fact is that Americans have always been eager tourists and willing expatriates, game to study the histories and decode the customs of neighboring and far-flung places. There are more and less benign versions of this roving impulse, but let's not get into that either. Also, with due respect to hard-typing globetrotters, travel writing exhausts me. What I'm in the mood for is a scrappy, burrowing cosmopolitanism, books that dig down into the soil of a place and emerge with local dirt under their fingernails. Here are two of those, one a memoir of life in a foreign land, the other an extended excursion into an exotic literature. — A.O. Not long before he died, Origo's father — an American diplomat married to an Anglo-Irish aristocrat — wrote that he wished his daughter to grow up 'free from all this national feeling that makes people so unhappy.' He wanted her 'to be a little 'foreign,' too, so that, when she grows up, she really will be free to love and marry anyone she likes, without its being difficult.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
