America's Ten Dead Cities:From Detroit to New Orleans

This post is follow-up to the brilliant Detroit in Ruins thread. Some people here were wanting to know if there were any other examples of urban decay taking place in America. This article outlines ten other places that,while maybe not hit as hard as Detroit,are definitely in an alarming state of decline.

Link to article:247wallst.com...

Edit:link is corrected and now works.

The deal is pretty simple,a city loses it's production capacity and can't draw anymore businesses,it goes under. People move where the most likely place to make money is. However,we can't overlook the fact that pretty much all of the states are suffering from either a lack of jobs or the necessary infrastructure needed to expand. All of this courtesy of a depreciating tax base brought on by massive outsourcing/insourcing and losses of Federal funding. It's all about the money which is the one thing that is definitely in short supply.

So, there's a death-spiral happening now. People move from one bombed out city to another city which is relatively less bombed out, to the dismay of the local government,which is already struggling to meet the needs of it's own residents. The added influx of outsiders creates further chaos causing the city to further erode and sending yet another city into a blighted, broken state. The larger the scale of the blight, the larger the total debt burden which means the less chance there is of financially digging out of hole,leading to yet more cuts in spending which leads to more ruin. Down,down it goes. Where it ultimately stops,I think we all know.

There are 5,000 Janitors in the US with PhDs.

Link to article:gizmodo.com...

Author:Kyle VanHemert

Think anyone can or would want to compete against that? IF that's not bad enough just imagine how many people hold Bachelor and Master degrees who would be willing to line up at 3 AM for a chance to shovel out cages at the zoo,pick up roadside garbage or flip burgers for minimum wage and no benefits.

I think it's only a matter of time before cities start forcibly turning away people. There's nowhere to run except out of the country which is not an option,unfortunately, for many people. Run if you can,but staying is not likely to be a good option. Even Mexico at this point might start looking pretty nice as an option. Many immigrants are tossing in the towel and heading back home because things have gotten so bad that America now has Ph.D. holders competing for things like janitorial work that used to be done (quite happily) by immigrants.

If you've got a Plan B,you'd better start making it work for you.

I have just finished the Detroit in Ruins thread and im glad you posted this so I don't have to search the web myself

Edit :

Here is the link to the actual article 247wallst.com...

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


Well when the government gave tax incentives to corporations to outsource work over seas, what did anyone think would happen? India, China, and the Philippines among other nations have experienced massive growth in all areas at the expense of what used to be the USA.

Globalization: I think is impossible for the USA to maintain it's standard of living in a global economy.

Our politicians knew this, but they only listen to there corporate supporters.

Cities across the USA has been in decline for many decades with droves moving to the suburbs leading to urban sprawl. I have a feeling that many people in the future will be moving back into the cities for economic reasons, but only if these cities can attract jobs. Detroit has failed to attract jobs, and failed to keep the ones they had.

Why do you all think the sin taxes have sprung up in the last ten years??? The tax base here is suffering, I bet religion will be taxed next.

The article doesn't seem to attribute it to the economic depression but it does show it has been going on a long time as we imported our industry and jobs over seas.

This is coming to a city near you soon has already started in LA. Time to get serious about creating local sustainable cities and communities that are decentralized and not dependant on centralized distribution and trucking for food. Yet the government is trying harder then ever to take over food production and distribution, gee I wonder why...

Time for the peasants to revolt!

reply to post by LittleIndianJr.


Oops.Thanks for correcting the link for me. Cheers,mate!

Yeah,Detroit has gotten me curious about other cities and their relative decline rates considering how long America has been gripped by the New Depression. I'm still keeping an eye for information about tent cities but that seems to be hard to come by. I think that stuff's being suppressed as much as possible or the actual number of tent communities in existence hasn't been fully realized yet by the media.

Originally posted by hawkiye
The article doesn't seem to attribute it to the economic depression but it does show it has been going on a long time as we imported our industry and jobs over seas.

This is coming to a city near you soon has already started in LA. Time to get serious about creating local sustainable cities and communities that are decentralized and not dependant on centralized distribution and trucking for food. Yet the government is trying harder then ever to take over food production and distribution, gee I wonder why...

Time for the peasants to revolt!

edit on 2-1-2011 by hawkiye because: (no reason given)

I agree with you 100%

I am in the process of printing the Army Survival Manual, NATO Surgery manual, as well as the 1881 cyclopedia just to be sure i remember everything my father taught me before his passing.

I suggest buying a rifle, a shotgun, a four wheel drive, as well as a garden, be self sufficient.

If the sheeple ever wake up and revolt expect to fend for yourself my friend, they are only out to help themselves and when i say they i mean everybody else.

I am not writing this to instill fear but quite the opposite i want people to be able to survive on their own and not rely on the grid.

Stay frosty,
Jr.

I was just thinking about some articles I read recently at Guardian.co.uk, when I saw this thread, I thought you may be interested in reading these if you haven't already?

$2tn debt crisis threatens to bring down 100 US cities

Overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing the US economic recovery. Nor are European cities safe – Florence, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice: all are in trouble

Meredith Whitney, the US research analyst who correctly predicted the global credit crunch, described local and state debt as the biggest problem facing the US economy, and one that could derail its recovery.

"Next to housing this is the single most important issue in the US and certainly the biggest threat to the US economy," Whitney told the CBS 60 Minutes programme on Sunday night.

"There's not a doubt on my mind that you will see a spate of municipal bond defaults. You can see fifty to a hundred sizeable defaults – more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of defaults."

Overdrawn and over here: European cities also threatened by debt crisis

I do think this is something we're bound to hear more about this year, unless of course higher powers find some way to distract attention/derail the natural order of things?

reply to post by curioustype


Nice find curioustype,

If Tptb would stop spending money that has never even existed then we would be in a much better world now but instead My Fellow Americans voted in "the popular guy" for president instead of someone who may not have been as fashionable but was at least a citizen of My country.

I dont know if this is how it works in other countries around the world but i certainly like to pretend it doesn't.

reply to post by curioustype


Yeah, those are both excellent pieces as well. On a side note,people like Meredith Whitney and Peter Schiff have been yelling for a long time about the coming financial gloom and taken many a verbal beat-down by their detractors until the whole charade could no longer be covered up. Now,many of those people are standing around with egg on their faces because what both of them have been talking about is actually coming to pass.

I seem to remember Ms. Whitney even saying that by the end of 2010 around 80,000(?) people on Wall Street would lose their jobs (I'm thinking possible 'end run' to pad numbers and increase bonuses). I'm not sure where she was getting her information but I don't think this has come to pass. I guess we'll find out soon enough. Some predictions do go off-base,you know?

Woooo! My city is number one on the list!

No wonder there's no work to be had.

reply to post by LittleIndianJr.


I wouldn't worry too much about who is in office right now. These issues have been building up over decades and various administrations all over the 'western' world...and indeed tie up the whole world (IMO).

Here in the UK we voted in a conservative/liberal co-allition, already making reactionary cuts, yet it will not guarantee we escape the ramifications of what appear to be massive systemic problems all around the world, from the USA, to China, the whole financial mechanism appears to be graunching to a less than pretty halt.

I am afraid that the horse had bolted long before either of the current UK/USA administrations were in office, just look at the figures for total national debts rather than the smaller structural defecits our politicians all try to distract us with...

When you look at 2011 and have credible analists and pundits seriously asking whether the Chinese, USA, European and UK economies (I could go on...) will 'survive' the year without major collapses, AND you look at the enourmous geo-political squabbles over trade and resources that are simultaneously surfacing, I think it's fair to say all bets are off, anything could happen?

Originally posted by MzMorbid
Woooo! My city is number one on the list!

No wonder there's no work to be had.

Bummer. Sorry to hear that. Hope things get better for you this year.

I thought I would throw a consideration into this dead city thread. I viewed the link and noticed these dead citys are also running out of water. Of course I suspect most ats members watched jessie venturas water conspiracy last week? Then there is a map i found in surfing the net several years ago, it is on ats in a different thread, the thread is about aliens eating humans I cant remember the exact title. The map displayed in that thread is the one I found many years ago. When i found it it detailed the depopulation and taking over of american lands. I am wondering if the dead citys and the water shortage may just have a connection to depopulation and mass moving of the people. Take out the citys and waters they gain control over our lives.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


If that is true about the janitors with Phd's surprised they haven't come to Australia due to the fact we have a major DR shortage and are bringing them in from countries that are classed as 3rd world countries

reply to post by vkturbo


Yeah,but considering many of them probably have Liberal Arts Ph.D.s,they aren't likely to do AU much good. How many museum curators,art historians or Ancient Urdu professors can a country possibly want or need?

The mismatch between talent and available jobs is pretty staggering pretty much the world over.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

Liberal Arts Ph.D.s

That made me laugh and it's absolutely true. People need to learn the trades and THAT is what will prevent the decline of America's infrastructure.

There are stories of people in soviet countries waiting months or years (I think) for tradesmen to repair their crap.

But nooo... It's a 'hard job'

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

I donno...I was in New Orleans a month ago...didn't look like Detroit to me.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

 

I donno...I was in New Orleans a month ago...didn't look like Detroit to me.

I suppose it depends on which part you were looking at. Apparently, New Orleans has lost over a quarter of it's population and whole areas are still bombed out from Katrina.