The Great Recession of the past several years spared few cities. But in these 10 major metros, the meltdown often capped decades of economic decline, ushered in by the loss of industry and a fleeing younger population.
Most of these shrinking cities, from the Midwest to the Deep South to the upper Northeast, never enjoyed the economic boom before the crash. Instead, they've watched their manufacturing base slowly erode and their residents move to greener pastures in recent decades.
1. New Orleans
- Percent decline since 2000: 26.6
- Population decline: 128,813
- Population 2009: 354,850
More than 307,000 families were forced to move from their homes when Hurricane Katrina struck five years ago, breaching levees and leaving huge sections of the city flooded for weeks. Many have not returned, leaving some neighborhoods half-empty.
At least 80% of the families in the New Orleans region had to move because of the disaster, and 12% still consider their situation to be "in flux" as they look for a permanent home, according to a recent survey by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That survey found the area to have 13% fewer housing units than it did before the flood. This decline has pushed housing costs up 33%, forcing a much larger portion of the population to spend more than a third of their paychecks on housing.
2. Flint, Mich.
- Percent decline since 2000: 10.6
- Population decline: 13,266
- Population 2009: 111,475
In the past two decades, Flint has become the symbol of the death of the American industrial city and the decline of the U.S auto industry.
The city, 66 miles northwest of Detroit, first captured the public’s attention in 1989 when documentary filmmaker Michael Moore chronicled the devastating effect that the closure of several General Motors plants in the 1980s had on the city in his documentary "Roger and Me."
The car giant once employed 79,000 local residents, but that figure has since shrunk to about 8,000. Now city officials have begun buying and razing abandoned homes in outlying areas to concentrate the population and services closer to the city’s center.
3. Cleveland
- Percent decline since 2000: 9.5
- Population decline: 45,211
- Population 2009: 431,363
The loss of steel and heavy manufacturing jobs in the past several decades has drained this city: It now has 45% of the population it had in the 1950s.
Some of the population loss came from the 42% decline in manufacturing employment between 1992 and 2002. And some of this decline can be attributed to sprawl, as people moved out of the city, taking businesses with them.
Cleveland's inner ring of neighborhoods suffered even more in the foreclosure crisis, leaving one in every five houses in Cleveland vacant in 2008. Now the city has developed a plan to deal with this blight, and urban farms, parks and other green spaces are starting to bloom.
4. Buffalo, N.Y.
- Percent decline since 2000: 7.5
- Population decline: 21,970
- Population 2009: 270,240
Buffalo was once a center of industry: It was America's eighth-largest city in 1900 and was a center of railroad commerce, steel production and automobile manufacturing.
But as those industries waned, so did Buffalo. And that decline continued in recent decades as more manufacturing jobs were lost. Now the city is just beginning to lure some people back with jobs in health services, finance and alternative energy — including a wind farm outside the city on the site of an old steel plant.
5. Dayton, Ohio
- Percent decline since 2000: 7.2
- Population decline: 11,947
- Population 2009: 153,857
Dayton also was decimated by the decline in the auto industry as supply companies here went belly up. It suffered a further blow last year when cash register and ATM manufacturer NCR Corp. announced it was moving its headquarters to Georgia, taking more than 1,200 jobs with it.
Most of the growth that has occurred in recent decades has been at the fringes of the city at the expense of its inner core. Indeed, regional planners expect the sprawling metro areas of Cincinnati/northern Kentucky and Dayton/Springfield, Ohio, to grow together into a single giant "megaplex" for census and marketing purposes as early as 2020.
6. Pittsburgh
- Percent decline since 2000: 6.6
- Population decline: 22,056
- Population 2009: 311,647
Pittsburgh's steel industry lost its luster in the 1980s, forcing many to leave the city. That population decline is still happening today.
The good news is that the rate of population loss is starting to slow for the first time, city officials say, as the city has diversified its employment base to include a wider range of fields including health care, robotics and technology. Some of its historic neighborhoods are starting to grow again.
7. Rochester, N.Y.
- Percent decline since 2000: 5.5
- Population decline: 12,180
- Population 2009: 207,294
The Flower City, New York's third-largest city, has been slowly wilting for the past 50 years.
Although it regularly receives kudos for its livability and quality of life, it has been losing jobs and population since its peak in the 1950s.
Once the flour-producing capital of the U.S., then a center for plant nurseries — hence the Flower City tag — it became known in the past century as an imaging and optical hub for companies such as Bausch & Lomb and Eastman Kodak. But these companies haven't been the employment powerhouses they once were. In 2006, the esteemed University of Rochester became the city’s largest employer, surpassing Kodak.
8. Jackson, Miss.
- Percent decline since 2000: 5.5
- Population decline: 10,239
- Population 2009: 175,021
Jackson, Mississippi’s largest city, has seen its population decline substantially in the past two decades as people have moved out of the central city to the suburban fringe, just as they did in other sprawl centers such as Atlanta.
Although unemployment is close to the national average, its job prospects in the service and professional sectors appear strong. Still, incomes here are much lower than in other parts of the country.
One in five Mississippians lives below the poverty line, the highest rate of any state, according to census data. The central part of the city is emerging as a hub for recent immigrants.
9. Syracuse, N.Y.
- Percent decline since 2000: 5.1
- Population decline: 7,510
- Population 2009: 138,560
Syracuse, with its high number of union jobs, lost its manufacturing base faster than many other major cities in the past century.
About 37% of Syracuse’s jobs were in manufacturing in 1958; in 2002, the share was only 12%, according to a 2003 Brookings Institution report. That number continued to decline dramatically this decade.
Some of the lost automobile, television and air-conditioning systems manufacturing jobs were replaced by computer manufacturing jobs, but not of the higher-wage variety that most cities are seeking.
10. Birmingham, Ala.
- Percent decline since 2000: 4.9
- Population decline: 11,291
- Population 2009: 230,130
Another former steel town, Birmingham has seen its industrial base dwindle and a large percentage of its population move outside the city limits in classic "white flight."
This combination of factors helped drive down its population to an estimated 230,130 from a peak of 340,000 in 1960.
But that doesn't mean it's on the skids. Birmingham is still a regional banking hub and center to several large insurers, construction and engineering firms and telecommunications companies.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham has started a small-business incubator at the university to encourage biomedical business growth. It is consistently rated as one of America's best places to work and earn a living, based on its competitive salary rates and relatively low living expenses.
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