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America's Fastest-Dying Towns
America's Fastest-Dying Towns
by Matt Woolsey
Ten spots where jobs are vanishing, incomes are dropping and poverty levels are rising.
If you've ever flown into Chicago, you've seen Bensenville. A village to the south of O'Hare Airport, it was part of Chicago's post-World War II growth boom, providing a multitude of manufacturing and warehousing jobs to the country's first wave of suburbanites.
As late as 2000, times were pretty good. Poverty was a minuscule 6.5%, incomes were growing and folks were relocating to Bensenville from outside the state at a steady rate.
But Bensenville's fortunes have since changed. Incomes have dropped by 11.4% (without accounting for inflation), poverty has more than doubled and domestic in-migration has ground to a halt.
"Much of the low-level manufacturing work has gone overseas, or the jobs have shifted to the outer edges of the metro area," says Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "What's happening is, you have industrial jobs replaced by service jobs."
In Depth: America's Fastest-Dying Towns
Bensenville leads our list of America's dying small towns. Other manufacturing hubs hit hard by declines in the auto industry appear on the list. They include places like Kokomo, Ind., Austintown, Ohio, and Middletown, Ohio.
"I'll slim it down to one word for you: cars," says Chris Cornell, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Kokomo was remarkably poorly positioned. Its two major employers were Chrysler and [auto parts maker] Delphi. Both have done poorly and had some pretty major layoffs."
Behind the Numbers
While major cities' tales of woe are well known, there are plenty of small towns across America where the economy has been in sharp decline since 2000. To find them, Forbes.com used data released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data, part of the U.S. Census Bureau's three-year American Community Survey, which gathered findings between 2005 and 2007, rank cities, towns and Census-designated places (CDPs) with populations between 20,000 and 65,000. We tracked four metrics: income growth, the rate of domestic in-migration, the change in poverty and the percentage of the population with a bachelor's degree or higher.
Incomes have dropped in all the places on the list since 2000. Even before adjusting for inflation, workers in places like Asheboro, N.C., or Spanish Lake, Mo., saw median incomes decline over the last seven years. In the former, this is a result of job losses in the manufacturing and heavy industry sectors; in the latter, an inability to attract highly skilled workers has hampered annual salaries.
Median incomes can drop if young workers or immigrants are moving to an area and taking newly formed jobs at lower salaries, which isn't necessarily a sign that times are tough. However, if the number of folks under the poverty line surges while incomes drop, it's a sign of economic decline instead of transition. This is what's happening in places like Middletown, Ohio, which saw the seven-year poverty rate jump from 12% to 22%.
If you liked this story, read:
Best Middle-Class Housing Markets
America's Most And Least Family-Friendly Cities
Further hampering economic growth: low in-migration. People vote with their feet, it's said, and there's no better endorsement of a city's future prospects than if citizens of other places are relocating to it en masse.
That's not the case in a place like Hamtramck, Mich. Only 0.7% of that city's population has moved there, from another state in the last year. In a growing area like Lawrenceville, Ga., where incomes have grown 8% since 2000, migration rates are much higher, with 5.1% of the population consisting of recent transplants.
Education levels also factor into an area's financial well-being. It serves as an indicator of a potential brain drain of the highly talented to other cities. And if a biotech, medical or semiconductor company is looking for a new manufacturing hub, it's likely to pick a city with a large population of highly skilled workers. That puts a place like Middletown, Ohio, at a competitive disadvantage, as only 12% of residents possess a bachelor's degree or better.
Though gloomy, this news is not necessarily a nail in these places' coffins. That's because turnarounds are possible, though without new industry it's difficult to know how long many of these spots can stay on life support.
"Until or unless other industries see this as a low-cost viable place to do business, turning into a Gary or Youngstown would be the worst-case scenario." says Cornell. "Pittsburgh is a good case in the sense that medical and biotech firms took the place of steel mills. That didn't help the steel workers, who don't have the necessary skills, but it helped their kids."
10. Middletown, Ohio
Situated between Dayton and Cincinnati, Middletown has declined in step with much of Greater Ohio. The town's median household income is $37,000, and its poverty level has jumped from 12% in 2000 to 22% in 2007. And it's not likely to get better anytime soon. With only 12.2% of residents possessing bachelor's degrees or better, the city isn't a prime candidate to attract highly skilled jobs that have lifted some other post-industrial cities.
9. Burton, Mich.
Burton, like its neighbor Flint, has been a major casualty of America's declining auto industry. Due to disappearing manufacturing and industrial jobs, household incomes fell 1.8% from 2000 to 2007 (before adjusting for inflation). Poverty rates have doubled in the last seven years, surging from 8.6% in 2000 to 15.4% in 2007.
8. Grandview, Mo.
To the south of Kansas City, Grandview, along with some of its neighbors in Jackson County, has lost a lot of economic ground since 2000. Poverty has doubled while incomes have remained flat, and have fallen when adjusted for inflation. What's more, the housing market has deteriorated, with prices falling 10% in the last year, according to Trulia.com. With few buyers, and no one moving in, home prices have dropped to $78,000 at the median level, off from $122,000 in 2003.
7. Hamtramck, Mich.
Cars, cars, cars. This town, just outside of Detroit, depends on the Motor City. After World War II, it rose alongside Detroit as a vibrant manufacturing center. Now the two are hampered by failing economies. Hamtramck has a dizzying unemployment rate of 36.1%, one of the highest in the country. Incomes have dropped by 12.4% in the last seven years thanks to a mass exodus of workers and companies from the area.
6. Spanish Lake, Mo.
To the north of St. Louis, Spanish Lake has been unable to attract highly skilled, high-salaried jobs. Only 14.7% of residents there have a bachelor's degree or better, one of the lower rates for cities measured. Without jobs to attract the highly educated, incomes have fallen by 7.75% in the last seven years.
5. Austintown, Ohio
It's a major problem for small towns when their economy is tied to a larger city in decline. Such is the case for Austintown, a western suburb of collapsing Youngstown. Like its big brother, Austintown has seen jobs drop since 2000. In-migration has fallen drastically, from 5% in 2000 to 0.6% in 2007, and the area has gone from a middle-class suburb with a moderate poverty rate of 8.8% to one with 13.8%.
4. Asheboro, N.C.
Asheboro is one of the few places in North Carolina where domestic migration rates fell between 2000 and 2007, from 10.5% to 1.9%. Poverty surged from 15.7% to 26.7% as incomes declined by 9.5%. The city, built on manufacturing and heavy industry for everything from batteries to tires, has yet to find a new niche.
3. Kokomo, Ind.
The best way to understand Kokomo's decline is to look at Chrysler. The auto company is the city's key employer, and as it has fallen, so have Kokomo's fortunes. From 2000 to 2007, incomes dropped 1.75% (not adjusted for inflation). Back then, 7.4% of residents had relocated to Kokomo from out of state in the previous year. By 2007, Americans no longer regarded it as an opportunity center; the in-migration rate fell to 1.3%.
2. Candler-McAfee, Ga.
Since 2000, Atlanta has been one of the nation's growth capitals and has attracted new residents from all over the country. But out-of-towners and corporations have avoided Candler-McAfee, and as a result the city has fallen into poverty at an alarming rate. In 2000, 13.6% of residents were living below the poverty line, about the national average. By 2007 the poverty rate had exploded to 27.5%, one of the highest rates in the country.
1. Bensenville, Ill.
Chicago's inner suburbs were a major post-World War II growth center. Manufacturing and warehousing provided jobs for newly minted suburbanites. Today those jobs are leaving the inner suburbs, heading overseas or to new exurban or rural spots that can offer less congestion, cheaper land and cheaper housing. Incomes in Bensenville declined 11.4% from 2000 to 2007, and it has the lowest rate of in-migration in the country.
by Matt Woolsey
Ten spots where jobs are vanishing, incomes are dropping and poverty levels are rising.
If you've ever flown into Chicago, you've seen Bensenville. A village to the south of O'Hare Airport, it was part of Chicago's post-World War II growth boom, providing a multitude of manufacturing and warehousing jobs to the country's first wave of suburbanites.
As late as 2000, times were pretty good. Poverty was a minuscule 6.5%, incomes were growing and folks were relocating to Bensenville from outside the state at a steady rate.
But Bensenville's fortunes have since changed. Incomes have dropped by 11.4% (without accounting for inflation), poverty has more than doubled and domestic in-migration has ground to a halt.
"Much of the low-level manufacturing work has gone overseas, or the jobs have shifted to the outer edges of the metro area," says Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "What's happening is, you have industrial jobs replaced by service jobs."
In Depth: America's Fastest-Dying Towns
Bensenville leads our list of America's dying small towns. Other manufacturing hubs hit hard by declines in the auto industry appear on the list. They include places like Kokomo, Ind., Austintown, Ohio, and Middletown, Ohio.
"I'll slim it down to one word for you: cars," says Chris Cornell, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Kokomo was remarkably poorly positioned. Its two major employers were Chrysler and [auto parts maker] Delphi. Both have done poorly and had some pretty major layoffs."
Behind the Numbers
While major cities' tales of woe are well known, there are plenty of small towns across America where the economy has been in sharp decline since 2000. To find them, Forbes.com used data released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data, part of the U.S. Census Bureau's three-year American Community Survey, which gathered findings between 2005 and 2007, rank cities, towns and Census-designated places (CDPs) with populations between 20,000 and 65,000. We tracked four metrics: income growth, the rate of domestic in-migration, the change in poverty and the percentage of the population with a bachelor's degree or higher.
Incomes have dropped in all the places on the list since 2000. Even before adjusting for inflation, workers in places like Asheboro, N.C., or Spanish Lake, Mo., saw median incomes decline over the last seven years. In the former, this is a result of job losses in the manufacturing and heavy industry sectors; in the latter, an inability to attract highly skilled workers has hampered annual salaries.
Median incomes can drop if young workers or immigrants are moving to an area and taking newly formed jobs at lower salaries, which isn't necessarily a sign that times are tough. However, if the number of folks under the poverty line surges while incomes drop, it's a sign of economic decline instead of transition. This is what's happening in places like Middletown, Ohio, which saw the seven-year poverty rate jump from 12% to 22%.
If you liked this story, read:
Best Middle-Class Housing Markets
America's Most And Least Family-Friendly Cities
Further hampering economic growth: low in-migration. People vote with their feet, it's said, and there's no better endorsement of a city's future prospects than if citizens of other places are relocating to it en masse.
That's not the case in a place like Hamtramck, Mich. Only 0.7% of that city's population has moved there, from another state in the last year. In a growing area like Lawrenceville, Ga., where incomes have grown 8% since 2000, migration rates are much higher, with 5.1% of the population consisting of recent transplants.
Education levels also factor into an area's financial well-being. It serves as an indicator of a potential brain drain of the highly talented to other cities. And if a biotech, medical or semiconductor company is looking for a new manufacturing hub, it's likely to pick a city with a large population of highly skilled workers. That puts a place like Middletown, Ohio, at a competitive disadvantage, as only 12% of residents possess a bachelor's degree or better.
Though gloomy, this news is not necessarily a nail in these places' coffins. That's because turnarounds are possible, though without new industry it's difficult to know how long many of these spots can stay on life support.
"Until or unless other industries see this as a low-cost viable place to do business, turning into a Gary or Youngstown would be the worst-case scenario." says Cornell. "Pittsburgh is a good case in the sense that medical and biotech firms took the place of steel mills. That didn't help the steel workers, who don't have the necessary skills, but it helped their kids."
10. Middletown, Ohio
Situated between Dayton and Cincinnati, Middletown has declined in step with much of Greater Ohio. The town's median household income is $37,000, and its poverty level has jumped from 12% in 2000 to 22% in 2007. And it's not likely to get better anytime soon. With only 12.2% of residents possessing bachelor's degrees or better, the city isn't a prime candidate to attract highly skilled jobs that have lifted some other post-industrial cities.
9. Burton, Mich.
Burton, like its neighbor Flint, has been a major casualty of America's declining auto industry. Due to disappearing manufacturing and industrial jobs, household incomes fell 1.8% from 2000 to 2007 (before adjusting for inflation). Poverty rates have doubled in the last seven years, surging from 8.6% in 2000 to 15.4% in 2007.
8. Grandview, Mo.
To the south of Kansas City, Grandview, along with some of its neighbors in Jackson County, has lost a lot of economic ground since 2000. Poverty has doubled while incomes have remained flat, and have fallen when adjusted for inflation. What's more, the housing market has deteriorated, with prices falling 10% in the last year, according to Trulia.com. With few buyers, and no one moving in, home prices have dropped to $78,000 at the median level, off from $122,000 in 2003.
7. Hamtramck, Mich.
Cars, cars, cars. This town, just outside of Detroit, depends on the Motor City. After World War II, it rose alongside Detroit as a vibrant manufacturing center. Now the two are hampered by failing economies. Hamtramck has a dizzying unemployment rate of 36.1%, one of the highest in the country. Incomes have dropped by 12.4% in the last seven years thanks to a mass exodus of workers and companies from the area.
6. Spanish Lake, Mo.
To the north of St. Louis, Spanish Lake has been unable to attract highly skilled, high-salaried jobs. Only 14.7% of residents there have a bachelor's degree or better, one of the lower rates for cities measured. Without jobs to attract the highly educated, incomes have fallen by 7.75% in the last seven years.
5. Austintown, Ohio
It's a major problem for small towns when their economy is tied to a larger city in decline. Such is the case for Austintown, a western suburb of collapsing Youngstown. Like its big brother, Austintown has seen jobs drop since 2000. In-migration has fallen drastically, from 5% in 2000 to 0.6% in 2007, and the area has gone from a middle-class suburb with a moderate poverty rate of 8.8% to one with 13.8%.
4. Asheboro, N.C.
Asheboro is one of the few places in North Carolina where domestic migration rates fell between 2000 and 2007, from 10.5% to 1.9%. Poverty surged from 15.7% to 26.7% as incomes declined by 9.5%. The city, built on manufacturing and heavy industry for everything from batteries to tires, has yet to find a new niche.
3. Kokomo, Ind.
The best way to understand Kokomo's decline is to look at Chrysler. The auto company is the city's key employer, and as it has fallen, so have Kokomo's fortunes. From 2000 to 2007, incomes dropped 1.75% (not adjusted for inflation). Back then, 7.4% of residents had relocated to Kokomo from out of state in the previous year. By 2007, Americans no longer regarded it as an opportunity center; the in-migration rate fell to 1.3%.
2. Candler-McAfee, Ga.
Since 2000, Atlanta has been one of the nation's growth capitals and has attracted new residents from all over the country. But out-of-towners and corporations have avoided Candler-McAfee, and as a result the city has fallen into poverty at an alarming rate. In 2000, 13.6% of residents were living below the poverty line, about the national average. By 2007 the poverty rate had exploded to 27.5%, one of the highest rates in the country.
1. Bensenville, Ill.
Chicago's inner suburbs were a major post-World War II growth center. Manufacturing and warehousing provided jobs for newly minted suburbanites. Today those jobs are leaving the inner suburbs, heading overseas or to new exurban or rural spots that can offer less congestion, cheaper land and cheaper housing. Incomes in Bensenville declined 11.4% from 2000 to 2007, and it has the lowest rate of in-migration in the country.
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