I found reading this Newsweek article on dying cities a bit like checking the obituaries to make sure your name doesn’t appear in it. To my relief Chicago was not on the list.
I had a bit of a problem with article. As an example of the problem nearly all of the decrease in Pittsburgh’s population had already taken place before 1980. Between 1930 and 1980 Pittsburgh’s population had decreased by a quarter million people. Since then its population has only decreased by a third of that. To my mind that’s looking at two different processes that have somewhat similar consequences and trying to make them into a single process.
Is Pittsburgh’s problem really the same as Vallejo, CA’s?
It’s such a typical news weekly article: virtually devoid of meaningful content. What can we conclude from the article? That sometimes cities get smaller. Yes. Yes they do.