Posted on 09/01/2010 9:31:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A city does not die when its last resident moves away. Death happens when municipalities lose the industries and vital populations that made them important cities.
The economy has evolved so much since the middle of the 20th Century that many cities that were among the largest and most vibrant in America have collapsed. Some have lost more than half of their residents. Others have lost the businesses that made them important centers of finance, manufacturing, and commerce.
Most of America’s Ten Dead Cities were once major manufacturing hubs and others were important ports or financial services centers. The downfall of one city, New Orleans, began in the 1970s, but was accelerated by Hurricane Katrina.
Notably, the rise of inexpensive manufacturing in Japan destroyed the ability of the industrial cities on this list to effectively compete in the global marketplace. Foreign business activity and US government policy were two of the three major blows that caused the downfall of these cities. The third was the labor movement and its demands for higher compensation which ballooned the costs of manufacturing in many of these cities as well.
24/7 Wall St. looked at a number of sources in order to select the list. One was the US Census Bureau’s list of largest cities by population by decade from 1950 to 2000 with estimates for 2007. Detroit, for example, had 1.9 million people in 1950 and was the fifth largest city in the nation. By 2000, the figure was 951,000. The city was not even on the top ten list in 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
. . . somebody over looked Baltimore, Md.
RE: I don’t see how Flint, MI is on that list. That town has already been DEAD for years and years.
Look at the list again. Flint is prominently listed.
Anyway, when ancient Rome became too corrupt, too taxing of the labor and artisan class, the people fled the cities for the wilds, even crossing over into lands ruled by invading tribes, as they were less taxed and more at liberty then the with the paper shufflers, code enforcers, standing domestic army, kings and princes of the Roman government.
*** Like claiming, “the free traders got their way?” ***
Folks of your ilk would come here on a daily basis promoting the good that would come from offshore outsourcing. AMERICAN businesses would offshore as much because it was trendy as for efficiency, (in many cases it was LESS efficent).
For you to compare my post, with someone who takes issue with the word “shipping” and it’s use in the vernacular, is much less than I’ve come to expect from you.
Perhaps you are desperate and feel the need to take a jab even though your position is weak? Doesn’t matter, there no longer is a debate. Offshoring has occurred. China is a rising power, the second largest economy in the world, and WILL overtake the US in that measure.
Things are going your way, why the deseration chumley?
Destroyed my hometown by democrat crooks!
We not only left the city, we left the county. Mind you, my parents bought their house in the neighborhood due to the elementary school only a few blocks from where we lived. They then found out because of the idiot federal Judge Sanders, we would be bussed from SE Dallas clear across to W Dallas. Two little six year olds being sent on a bus for over an hour, all in the inane pursuit of ‘diversity’. My dad said ‘He!l no’ and picked us up and left Dallas. Good move.
RE: Today, by the way, there is a casino where those steel mills used to stand and the United Steel Workers are long gone.
Pittsburgh looks like a big city that has re-invented itself from a Steel Dependent city to a city with varied industries — including biotech, robotics and even banking.
Dare I say that Pittsburgh stil thrives ?
We can learn a lot from Pittsburgh, which is this — if you want your city to thrive, you CANNOT depend on one industry. You must learn to DIVERSIFY and be FLEXIBLE.
We have factories, plants. They have just fled Democrat and RINO cities, leaving the soon to die elderly in their no-one-will-buy-houses, welfare projects, immigrant shops, huge lawyer class and the local, government caretakers of cops, firemen and such, squeezing the last tax dollar until they retire to Florida or Idaho.
“Now...how many of these have now, and have had for quite a while, Liberal/Democrat leadership and governing bodies?”
#####
That is a large part of the problem, but far from ALL of it.
The rest of the blame needs to be assessed in a way too politically incorrect even for FR.
How many of these cities have black mayors?
“That was a very different world. American hard goods mfg industry was at its peak of productivity. We also financed rebuilding of Europe, for the benefit of both the Europeans and ourselves.”
Japan is where I have a problem they got new steel mills while ours were 40 years old at the time.
They should still be using a wood plow to this day for what they did!
?Exactly. And anyone who has been paying attention saw this coming years ago!
Idiot stick, I’m not going to get into a discussion with you, because time after time I have destroyed your arguments only to have you change the subject and argue by avoidance.
Free Traitors most certainly have said...
1. Why should we pay American wages, when we can get these things produced a far lower wage costs in other nations?
What is that if not, “We can’t compete when it comes to
wages.”
2. The products that come form foreign nations are just as good as the ones made here, and for far less money.
What is that if not, “We can’t make good products that are better than those from foreign nations.”
3. When the service sector jobs were the fastest growing jobs, and we raised the issue of declining salaries, the Free Traitors stated, “What’s wrong with service sector jobs? Those are honorable jobs. What’s wrong with you?”
What is that if not, “$12 dollar an hour jobs are as good as $20 dollar an hour jobs when it comes to a reasoned tax base?”
So no, I’m sure you never heard any of this. Liar.
“You need to add one thing — PEACE AND ORDER. No one will move to a crime infested city”
True.
I would add two related issues that would reduce crime at low/no cost:
Get rid of all public housing projects (Convert all public housing to condos is one way)
Strict workfare; absloutely no welfare.
No way I could have taken this list seriously if it didn’t include Albany. It was a hellhole 15 years ago when I left and I doubt it has improved. I thank God everyday I escaped and my kids will never know that world.
Rochester, NY?
“Albany won’t die until the state government moves out.”
Any city that relies on one business/industry for life is already dead. They are at the mercy of that business. And if the business is government it is beyond dead, it is stinking from decay. Witness Wash. DC!
“So what about the cities that aren’t dying or dead and have Liberal/Democrat leadership? Do those liberals get credit for that as well?”
And what cities would that be? Name one.
Albany, Buffalo and ???
Every one of these, save Galveston, is in the former industrial North. Every one is Democrat controlled.
Any lessons to be gleaned from those two points is lost on the powers that be.
No, folks of your ilk come here on a daily basis in order to put words in our mouths. It's utterly boring, and predictable.
Someone asked you how many jobs can fit in a container . . . big deal. Others try to explain why those jobs are being offshored. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is more funny than watching a protectionist play stupid when that happens. But what do you expect, when your solution to the problem is to throw the government at it?
Is there anything in the world a protectionist cannot fix with another government program?
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