The legacy of industrial change is multifaceted. Social and cultural consequences in places and working lives interact with locally-specific and transnational factors. This poses not only difficulties in creating a coherent narrative but also challenging methodological issues stemming from different local conditions and outcomes. The expectations set for a successful green transition require us to understand the impact on working lives, livelihoods, and the places affected in which industries-to-be-transformed are based. We know that the concentration of economic activity in some places creates place-based economic and social dependencies. Reindustrialization and deindustrialization processes may occur concurrently, sometimes in the same region, but the dependencies are often unclear and unexplored, both in time and space. Nostalgia and hope for the future direct our interest towards the landscape of historical consciousness in these processes. This paper seeks to exemplify how Swedish industrial working-class communities in Bergslagen, once considered the industrial heartland of Sweden, have dealt with the post-war so-called structural transformation, making the region synonymous with terminal industrial decline. For identities based on work, community, heritage, and industry, this deindustrialization process was, and still is, traumatic. Furthermore, the paper wishes to discuss the relationship between the actual outcomes of deindustrialization processes and the hopes for a green re-industrialized future.This paper links to how memory and experiences of deindustrialization and its specific trajectories influence future perspectives on the green transition.