America's Most Abandoned Cities

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

Detroit and Atlanta, those do cause my eyebrows to raise, because for Detroit, when did they ever get out of their doldrums... And Atlanta, it's problems were predictable. It was not a matter of if, but when, unfortunately... They growth superseded their capacity to maintain a city...

While the city of Detroit proper has been losing population consistently for quite some time, that has not been true of the metropolitan area. The metropolitan area was continuing to grow until the housing bust, about 2 years ago. This article specifically referred to the "metropolitan area". True, people were leaving the city itself, but they were populating the suburbs. The number of abandoned homes in the suburbs is shocking.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by AGDee

While the city of Detroit proper has been losing population consistently for quite some time, that has not been true of the metropolitan area. The metropolitan area was continuing to grow until the housing bust, about 2 years ago. This article specifically referred to the "metropolitan area". True, people were leaving the city itself, but they were populating the suburbs. The number of abandoned homes in the suburbs is shocking.

Is it all the suburbs, or primarily the working class/middle class suburbs? At least here, it's the marginal suburbs that are feeling the impact of foreclosures and short sales. Home prices are a little lower in the wealthy suburbs, but the homes are still selling. Is that true for Detroit, or are homes being abandoned all over the place?

[AGDee]

They are being abandoned all over the place. There are mansions in wealthy areas in foreclosure just as there are in working class neighborhoods. And, it's about to get worse with the stuff that happened with Chrysler this week.

[madmax]

Detroit's problems are deeper than Chrysler and GM. Any city with a 24% high school graduation rate is a slum.