The steel mill: ultimate finale location or just overused?

I was watching one of my favorite films today and had a startling revelation. The film, Black Rain, stars Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, as NY cops tracking a crime boss back to Japan. Black Rain is a great film that manages to infuse the typically stale anti-hero cop drama with explorations of cultural identity and racism directed at gaijin or foreigners.

The revelation: the steel mill is the most overused location in action films.

There I was watching Black Rain, a movie I have seen at least 10 times. And just as the climactic third act is getting underway our hero finds himself tracking the bad guy to a steel mill. And that is when it struck me. I could immediately think of three or four action movies with a steel mill as a featured location. In fact a steel millwas the finale location in: Terminator 2, Star Wars Episode III, One of the Highlander movies and probably twenty more that I cant think of right now.

What drives our love of steel mills in movies? If you visit a real steel mill are there bad guys conducting clandestine deals or duking it out with their nemeses around every corner? I'm just wondering why the steel mill is the ultimate finale location in most action director's minds. Is it the machismo associated with the steel worker? Or just all those cool ligthing effects your get from the molten steel?