Many are following better weather and economies (sometimes their very jobs) to the southeast and southwest. I read an article within the past couple of years describing the fate of northern cities; in a couple of decades only a couple (maybe NYC and Chicago) are expected to remain as large cities. While the uncertainty of business (related to weather) and the additional heating costs were cited, I don’t remember it mentioning what I think is one of the main problems: Aging infrastructures with dwindling tax bases to fix them (and really, there is no need for those infrastructures to accommodate the massive populations they contained during their manufacturing heydays). In the NYC metro area, old cities are crumbling and both the taxable employers AND employees that could be squeezed to fix them are gone. Welfarian populations expect “someone else” to fix it (in addition to feeding, clothing, housing, and providing public education to them); taxpayers (corporate and individuals) are politely declining, packing up, and leaving.
I really don’t see how these areas can attract new businesses or productive populations; they would just be inheriting a huge IOU on the public employee pensions (which drains current revenues that can’t then be used for current services) as well as massive deferred maintenance bills for the infrastructure.
What about cooling costs?