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July 21, 2013

America is becoming more urbanized…yet these cities are dying.

detroit3_thumb.jpg

What do they have in common? Now That Detroit’s Gone Bust, Is Your City Next? | Zero Hedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 21, 2013 11:09 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Where did everyone go?

Posted by: David McKinnis at July 21, 2013 1:15 PM

David - The 'burbs. That's where everyone lives who works in the big shiny buildings downtown. And they take their pay home with them.

Posted by: BillH at July 21, 2013 2:11 PM

You're no doubt right BillH. That would also explain how the Red Wings stay in business.

Posted by: David McKinnis at July 21, 2013 4:18 PM

Well, in defense of Scranton, Pa., Big Coal (the biggest of the local employers) went bust in the Valley in the late '50s due to a really stupid mining accident that dumped the entire freakin' Susquehanna River into the mines, most of which were interconnected.

At least things seemed to have bottomed out, and the cities in the Valley seem to be reasonably competently run. Yes, they've had a "mega-project" or two, such as the "Mall at Steamtown", that probably isn't doing too well, what with Monkey Wards having long since gone bankrupt and the decline of malls generally.

I think what has saved Scranton and Wilkes-Barre is that there just isn't the money in the state of Pennsylvania as a whole to allow a massive sore on the scale of Detroit to fester. It probably also helps that the Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and all the rest aren't as gullible as the average (which is to say, black) Detroiter. Yeah, they may be Democrats, but they aren't DIMocrats-- you have to be sharp and feisty to "make it" in a coal-mining town, even it it's only so in spirit, now.

My two cents' worth.

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's Republic of Maryland
(who often wishes he could live in Susquehanna County. At least, I'll be buried there amongst my kin......)

Posted by: Hale Adams at July 21, 2013 4:35 PM

Well Mr Adams, a good friend who lives in Scranton, doesn't paint such a comparable picture. They're broke, just put the city's staff on minimum wage. Between Lackawanna and Susquehanna counties, they're locking up pols and judges for turpitude and corruption.

Scranton hangs on by raising taxes; you know how that works out.

Posted by: Peccable at July 22, 2013 3:21 AM

Spreading the poverty around.

Future headline; China buys Detroit.

Posted by: tim at July 22, 2013 7:33 AM

At least 10 of the 15 have a blindingly obvious denominator, so let's all complete the IngSoc PC-pas de deux and avoid acknowledgement. The campaign to install self-censoring ThoughtCrime programming is now reaching fruition.

In any arena, the Reality-oriented entity will outperform the one that is not.

A word to the Eloi ... Clue Up

Posted by: Eric Blair at July 22, 2013 8:25 AM

Scranton's demise is attributable to the once mighty Red Barons falling under the control of the Steinbrenner crime family. Sometimes there are simple answers.

Posted by: Will at July 22, 2013 9:31 AM

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