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is a city in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 10,838 at the 2000 census.
The town is home to the former Lukens Steel Company, which was bought by the former Bethlehem Steel Corporation which was bought by the former Ohio-based International Steel Group (ISG) in 2002 which was bought by Mittal Steel and then merged with Arcelor Steel to form the current ArcelorMittal company.
Lukens Steel was the largest employer in Chester County in the 1960s, with over 10,000 workers. To remain competitive, it has made its production process more efficient and reduced the workforce to about 1,000 skilled workers.
During the economic boom of the late 1990s, Coatesville began an ambitious redevelopment project, facets of which included tearing down abandoned and dangerous public housing, new single family and townhouse developments, a regional recreation center, and most recently, mixed use projects that would include retail, office, and condominium housing, as well as the renovation of the local Amtrak station.
The redevelopment plans have not been without controversy, including a five-year eminent domain dispute with a local landowner in neighboring Valley Township. It has been resolved without the need to seize the property, but it caused the ouster of four incumbent City Councilpersons in the November 2005 general elections. The four new councilpersons, two of whom are ordained Pentecostal and Methodist ministers, caused further controversy with the firing of the city solicitor, the resignation of the city manager (who negotiated with the Valley Township landowner), and the departure of the assistant manager, police chief, and city treasurer.
In 1911, the lynching in Coatesville of Zachariah Walker, a black man who killed a white mill policeman, prompted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to investigate and called for an end to lynching nationwide.