Big LIE. If population is declining why do they keep having to widen streets and sidewalks to deal with the increase in people? Media always spreads this population hysteria type story to make people think we need yet more swarms of immigrants to save us. Any statistics claiming population is decreasing are patently fake. Some Americans are moving out. I am one who did. But this thing is exaggerated greatly, while the flow of illegals is intentionally under reported.
Years ago our Democrat governor Corzine in NJ admitted that we had lost population if we didn’t count ILLEGAL immigrants; NY and NJ are “sanctuary states” for just that reason. To protect the livelihoods of the gubmint employee caste, they open the floodgates/stop enforcing immigration laws - and expect the rest of the country to subsidize it by allowing their residents to deduct the resulting high property taxes from their taxable federal income.
The problem with these ageing cities is there is a ton of deferred maintenance that needs to be done on the crumbling infrastructure but nobody to pay for it; the taxpayers (individuals and companies) are fleeing, and are replaced with people who contribute little or nothing but have huge costs associated with them (providing EVERYTHING for them).