A city does not die when its last resident moves away. Death happens when municipalities lose the industries and vital populations that made them important cities. 
 
 The economy has evolved so much since the middle of the 20th Century that many cities that were among the largest and most vibrant in America have collapsed. Some have lost more than half of their residents. Others have lost the businesses that made them important centers of finance, manufacturing, and commerce. 
 
 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. 
 
 24/7 Wall St. looked at a number of sources in order to select the list. One was the US Census Bureau’s list of largest cities by population by decade from 1950 to 2000 with estimates for 2007. Detroit, for example, had 1.9 million people in 1950 and was the fifth largest city in the nation. By 2000, the figure was 951,000. The city was not even on the top ten list in 2007. 
 
 The Census data also describes the shift of much of the population to cities which were not considered large at all in 1950. Most of these are in the southern part of the US. Rising populations in these locations has been driven by the growing number of retired people and a relocation of the nation’s workforce. This is how San Diego, Phoenix, and San Antonio have moved onto the list of the ten largest cities in America. 
 
 Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study of what they described as America’s 150 forgotten cities. The municipalities on their list were medium-sized and ranked by measurements that included poverty. The reason for their demise largely match the cities on the 24/7 Wall St list. The MIT research work goes beyond a mere list of statistics and points out reasons why some of these cities will never recover. In almost every case, tax bases have disappeared, which has undermined the ability of local governments to spend money on revitalization. Abandoned areas of these cities have high crime rates, which not only keeps people from relocating to these areas but is actually an incentive for them to move away. This in turn, leads to the image of these cities as desolate urbanscapes. 
 
 (Read 24/7 Wall St.’s Piece On “The Real Labor Shortage: Skilled Blue-Collar Workers”) 
 
 1. Buffalo 
 
 In 1900, Buffalo was the eighth largest city in America. It was located on one of the busiest sections of the Erie Canal, the terminus of the canal on the Great Lakes. Thanks to its location, Buffalo had huge grain milling operations and one of the largest steel mills in the country. Buffalo prospered during WWII as did many northern industrial cities. After the WWII, the manufacturing plants returned to the production of cars and industrial goods. The population rose to more than 500,000 in the mid-1950s. It is half that today. Buffalo was wounded irreparably by the de-industrialization of America. ||||| 7. Albany 
 
 Albany is still the capital of New York State. It was once one of the largest “inland ports” in the world sitting near the place where the Hudson River meets the Erie Canal. This helped it become a major center for finished lumber and iron works. Perhaps because of the influence of the politicians who worked in the city, several universities and colleges were built there. The city’s manufacturing industry helped the population to rise to 134,000 in 1950. it is now under 95,000. The higher education institutions in the region have begun to help Albany become a regional center for information technology and the biotechnology industries, but these are not large enough to offset declines in the city’s fortunes which began in the 1960s. 
 
 Now known mostly for its gambling business, Atlantic City was dying before legislation allowed gaming companies to operate there. The city was created as a tourist location in the 1880s and a number of massive hotels were built there. Atlantic City’s hospitality industry also made it a favorite for trade shows and conventions. The Democratic National Convention was held there in 1964. The city’s appeal to tourists was damaged primarily by two things: the first was the availability of inexpensive air travel to southern resorts areas like Florida. Vacationers could fly from New York to Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and Palm Beach in less time than it took to drive to Atlantic City. The second,the rise of Las Vegas as the gaming capital of the world, made it the preferred destination for many conventions. Atlantic City got into the gambling industry in 1978–too late. 
 
 This Pennsylvania city had two advantages in the middle of the last century. It was well located for railroads that moved freight from the Midwest through Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the Eastern seaboard. Its proximity to iron ore made it a major manufacturing center and refiner much like Bethlehem to its east and Pittsburgh to its west. Like many other Northeastern manufacturing cities, Allentown watched its major product, in this case steel, being produced in greater and greater volumes and at lower prices in Japan. 
 
 This Texas city was one of the largest ports in the US a hundred years ago. It was also the location of one of the greatest natural disasters in American history. In 1900, a hurricane killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people. In the decades after the hurricane, Galveston became a major tourist center due to its location on the Gulf and proximity to several larger Texas cities. Galveston was also a major military recruitment center during WWII. The cause of Galveston’s demise is unique. It had become something of the Sodom and Gomorrah of the southern US. There was a large gambling industry there, some of it illegal, which was controlled by criminals. In the late 1950s,Texas state authorities successfully attacked local organized crime. The regulated tourist trade could not replace the illegal business. Galveston’s port and hospitality industries had begun to improve, but where trampled by the effects of Hurricane Ike in 2008. The event destroyed a large part of the city’s tax base, and set back the tourism industry once again. 
 
 Douglas A. McIntyre
– It's another cities-in-trouble list, although this one from 24/7 Wall St declares these "desolate urbanscapes" not just dying but dead. (For the usual reasons of population loss, manufacturing exodus, crime, etc.) Here's the top 5: Buffalo: "Wounded irreparably by the de-industrialization of America." Flint: It's simple: "In 1960, GM employed 80,000 people in Flint and it employs fewer than 8,000 today." Hartford: It used to be an insurance mecca. But, geez, even "The Hartford" is gone now. Cleveland: It once thrived on steel, rubber, and autos. Enough said. New Orleans: Katrina sped things up, but the real demise here began in the 1970s. Click the link for the full list, which includes New York's capital and, yes, Detroit.