Some rough talk about my adopted home town of Cleveland, Ohio. My parents were born there and I lived there for five years in the 1990s. From Forbes:
America’s Fastest-Dying Cities
08.05.08, 6:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON, D.C. -The turmoil of the mortgage market granted a temporary reprieve from hearing about the woes of America’s Rust Belt. That doesn’t mean things are better. Despite a decade of national prosperity, the former manufacturing backbone of the U.S. is in rougher shape than ever, still searching for some way to replace its long-stilled smokestacks.
Where’s it worst? Ohio, according to our analysis, which racked up four of the 10 cities on our list: Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland. The runner-up is Michigan, with two cities–Detroit and Flint–making the ranking.
In Pictures: America’s Fastest-Dying Cities
These, and four other metropolitan statistical areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, face fleeing populations, painful waves of unemployment and barely growing economies. By our measure, they’ve struggled the worst of any areas in the nation in the 21st century. And they face even bleaker futures.
My own story about Cleveland’s woes appeared Monday in the Tribune.
Writ Large 