Posted on 08/26/2010 10:45:30 AM PDT by dragnet2
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.
#1. Buffalo
#2. Flint
#3. Hartford
#4. Cleveland
#5. New Orleans
#6. Detroit
#7. Albany
#8. Atlantic City
#9. Allentown
#10. Galveston.
(Excerpt) Read more at 247wallst.com ...
Yep.
Unions.
A quaint way to put it. What actually happened was WWII which left Japan a bombed out ruin. In order to help Japan recover, and help them become a strong Cold War ally, the US government passed legislation that intentionally gave the US electronics manufacturing to Japan. Where Zenith once employed almost 30,000 in the Chicago area, I'm not sure they even exist there now.
This had nothing to do with not being able to compete in global markets, but it was a government decision to move certain manufacturing to the cheap labor in Japan during the 1950s, to produce products to be sold overwhelmingly in the US market. The US owned the global market place in the 1950s, and intentionally gave parts of it away for foreign policy goals.
I haven’t been down there in a while but I always thought of it as a tourist town with a small port. Seems like Chiquita bananas used to ship there.
Dayton is smaller and thus less noticeable but it should be the ‘trophy’ city: run by and for liberal Democrats who can watch Fortune 500 firms dashing out of town and huge plants shut down (GM, Delco, etc.) and still claim that they are somehow pro-growth, pro-business, etc.
They have refused to do the bare minimum when it comes to criminals having the run of the place and downtown in particular is a no-go zone (not that there’s anything to do or see any more).
Separated by 50-60 miles, Dayton was always the blue-collar old-line Dem complement to Republican stronghold Cincinnati but Dayton seemed to actually believe the Dem rhetoric about “the werkin’ man” until there were no “werkin’ men” left.
Looks like it is Yankees 8, Dixie 2. This game the low score wins.
“Galveston was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Ike in 2008.”
And like other Gulf coast cities, Galveston has been impacted in a negative way by the Stroker Regime this summer.
At least after Ike hit, the people of Galveston did not sit around pissing and moaning like the knobs and dirtbags in New Orleans did. They pulled on their work boots and attacked the mess and rebuilt. What a concept!
While not exactly boomtowns, Albany and Hartford are hardly near the bottom. I would live in either way before I would live in other places like Baltimore, Phildelphia, Newark NJ, St. Louis, etc, etc.
And Allentown? Sure, while again its not the boomtown it was back in the heyday of steel, it's also not the depressed/dying town it was when that Billy Joel song came out.
Japan? No
China, India and Thailand? Yes
We've got the 9th Ward and New Orleans East that is usually the ONLY part of New Orleans shown nationally. And, yes they suck up the democratic demagoguery and it is NEVER going to change - it is generational! And, they vote straight democrat so yes, New Orleans is run and has been run by democrats. Welfare, food stamps, poor schools - typical democrat breeding ground.
Growing up outside of Detroit I understand what you’re saying.
TSgt
Proudly posting on FR without reading the article since Nov 15, 2002
;)
Find the worst places in the country based on crime, corruption, poverty, unemployment or what have you and you will find an inconvenient demographic and political truth.
Galveston was Houston’s port, until Houston politicians got the Corps of Engineers to dredge a navigable channel through Galveston Bay, and they built their own port. The ships sailed right past Galveston and the city died. Now it’s just condos and is more or less an exurb of Houston.
Agreed. Hartford is preferable to many, many places - especially CT’s largest city of Bridgeport!
Plenty of white collar jobs abound in Hartford and while no one actually lives IN hartford, there are many very desirable towns surrounding it (West Hartford, Avon, Simsbury, Farmington, Glastonbury, Wethersfield...)
They’ve made a ‘comeback’ by pursuing an unusual niche market - specifically, prisons. Many of the prominent downtown buildings are lockups!
And the Government to Government Fleece Trade deals also gave away jobs. Confucius say when you give away jobs you elect Democrats.
This is what worries me.....All future Mega-Mosque cities...
Maybe it's working.
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