Residents in the rugged, overmined city of Jincheng in northern China’s coal heartland have been breathing a little easier after campaigns to reduce pollution forced dozens of collieries and chemical plants to close. “Everything was covered in dust, and it’s cleaner now,” said Zhang Haibin, a 44-year-old farmer living in a largely abandoned hamlet on the edge of a defunct coal deposit that once attracted migrant workers from across the country. But Jincheng has paid a heavy price, Zhang said. Factories and coal mines have shut down, sending shockwaves through the local economy. The migrants have drifted away, and jobs are hard to find even for locals. And the air is still not clean enough, falling short of the government’s pollution targets. That means that as another punishing anti-pollution campaign gets underway this winter in smog-choked north China, Jincheng will be under even more pressure. […]