The Fastest-Shrinking Cities in America, 2015
Cities that thrived on the backs of the now-vanishing manufacturing industry continue to shrink. Cities that sprang from rural farming communities are also shrinking as their populations look for greener pastures in more urban places.
Gary, Indiana, is still shrinking. So is Flint, Michigan, the town at the center of then-unknown director Roger Moore’s documentary “Roger & Me” about the impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith’s decision to close several auto plants there. That was shot in 1989, back when the city’s population was around 140,000. Last year, the population fell to just about 99,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent report on municipal populations.
(Related: Click here to see the fastest-growing cities in the nation.)
Charleston, the capital and largest city in West Virginia, has been shrinking for almost five decades. The state’s largest industry, coal, has experienced year after year of waning demand.
But No. 1 on this list of fastest-shrinking cities in the United States isn’t shrinking for either of those reasons.
While many of the cities on the list fall in the Rust Belt and coal-mining regions, this year’s list offers a greater geographic mix than last year’s, which almost exclusively comprised cities in Michigan and Ohio. Ohio doesn’t even make an appearance on this list.
15. Scranton, Pennsylvania
Population: 75,281
Loss over the past year: 0.7 percent
Scranton was once boosted by a booming coal industry in the first half of the 20th century. Part of Pennsylvania’s Coal Region, the city is joined by several others in northeastern Pennsylvania that have struggled to regain its footing following the slow decline of coal. The city lost 527 people last year, which is almost exactly double what it lost the year before.
(Photo: Lotzman Katzman, Flickr)
14. Gary, Indiana
Population: 77,909
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
Gary, like many of the cities on this list, has a national reputation as a city in decline. Deeply affected by the collapse of the local steel industry, the city’s population has shrunk nearly 60 percent since it peaked in 1960. Gary has taken drastic measures to stay afloat, selling off abandoned homes for just $1 and closing public schools. The nearly vacant town even considered cutting services to half the city and consolidating its population, though officials never went through with the plan.
(Photo: Joey Lax-Salinas, Flickr)
13. Hammond, Indiana
Population: 78,384
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
Hammond was also devastated by the steel industry leaving the area. However, past estimates have shown that the Census Bureau tends to overestimate how much Hammond’s population is shrinking (while underestimating Gary’s population loss). In 1999, it estimated the population at about 77,300, but in 2010 the population came in at just shy of 82,000. In 2009, it estimated the population at about 76,500, but when the official figures were reported in 2010, the population was 80,700. So while the Census Bureau says it lost 607 people last year, that may not be the case.
(Photo: Connor Coyne, Wikimedia)
12. Flint, Michigan
Population: 99,002
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
Flint, Michigan has long been on the decline since the 1970s, when the population peaked at almost 50 percent higher. This year, it lost another 789 people.
11. Manhattan, Kansas
Population: 56,078
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
Manhattan, Kansas, is one of the few cities on this list that isn’t suffering from the decline of a major industry, such as steel or coal. Instead, the city’s decline is probably more reflective of the overall population decline in the state, which is increasinglly aging and rural.
Young people are leaving rural areas to begin their families, and increased modernization of farm work means less people are needed to work the land, according to Laszlo Kulcsar, director of the Kansas Population Center and an associate professor of sociology at Kansas State University, which is located in Manhattan.
Despite the presence of the university, Manhattan is still several hours away from large urban centers such as Kansas City.
10. Rockford, Illinois
Population: 149,123
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
Rockford is the fastest-shrinking city in Illinois, and though it currently stands as the state’s third-largest (behind Chicago suburb Naperville and the Windy City itself), its shrinking population threatens to send it down the list.
“Most of (the decline) is about jobs,” Sherrie Taylor, a research associate with the Center for Governmental Studies, told the Rockford Registar Star.
The city is losing its population to Chicago, which is about 90 minutes away; Chicago’s far-flung suburbs; and even Madison, Wisconsin.
9. Charleston, West Virginia
Population: 50,404
Loss over the past year: 0.8 percent
West Virginia is losing people faster than any other state, largely due to its economic problems, economist and demographer Christiadi (who goes by only one name) of West Virginia University told the West Virginia Gazette.
“Our economy is not doing as well as a few years back, and one of the reasons is the coal production is declining, coal demand is declining.”
(Photo: AndreCarrotflower, Wikimedia)
8. Erie, Pennsylvania
Population: 99,452
Loss over the past year: 0.9 percent
Erie’s population loss is also indicative of declines in iron and steel manufacturing. The city is still a big manufacturer of plastics, but its more traditional manufacturing industry is all but gone. Erie’s population has been declining since the 1960s, though it slowed down in the 1990s and barely declined the following decade.
The city lost 857 people this year, almost twice what it lost the year before.
(Photo: Barbara Eckstein, Flickr)
7. Detroit, Michigan
Population: 680,250
Loss over the past year: 0.9 percent
The city emerged from bankruptcy at the end of last year, but still needs to rebuild just about everything, according to its mayor, Mike Duggan.
“How do you deliver service in a city where the unemployment rate is double the state average, and we’ve got to rebuild a water system and a bus system and a computer system and a financial system?” Duggan asked the New York Times. “It’s all going to be a challenge.”
In the meanwhile, the city’s population is still fleeing–it lost 6,424 people last year.
6. Jackson, Mississippi
Population: 171,155
Loss over the past year: 1 percent
Like Manhattan, Jackson’s fate is tied to that of its state. “The inability to retain and attract people who have the option to live elsewhere is, and always has been, Mississippi’s defining challenge,” writes Jake McGraw, public policy coordinator at Mississippi-based advocacy organization William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and the editor of Rethink Mississippi.
He continues: “Simply put, Mississippi has too few urban and economic magnets to keep the people we have, much less bring in new ones. More people than ever seek out metropolitan areas for professional and cultural opportunities that rural life cannot offer.”
(Photo: Hsxeric, Wikimedia)
5. Saginaw, Michigan
Population: 49,844
Loss over the past year: 1 percent
Saginaw’s population decline is similar to that of the rest of Michigan. Manufacturing decline led to population decline, and the city lost nearly 10,000 people in the first part of the 21st century. The city lost another 460 people last year, or about 1 percent of its total population.
(Photo: Katherine Welles, Shutterstock)
4. Shreveport, Louisiana
Population: 198,242
Loss over the past year: 1 percent
Though Shreveport’s population had remained relatively flat over the first decade of the 21st century, it has been on the decline over the past couple years. From 2012 to 2013, it lost 1,739 people, while this year, it lost 1,457.
In 2014, Shreveport’s economy shrank by more than 5 percent, making it 24/7 Wall Street’s fastest-shrinking economy for the past two years.
Once again, the closure of manufacturing plants seems to be the culprit.
(Photo: Archedamian, Wikimedia)
3. Decatur, Illinois
Population: 74,010
Loss over the past year: 1.1 percent
Decatur also made the 24/7 Wall Street list for shrinking economies in 2014, ranking right behind Shreveport. It made another in 2013, for its shrinking labor force, largely in manufacturing. Farm equipment manufacturer Caterpillar cut hundreds of jobs in Decatur in 2013, and the manufacturing base that formerly fueled the economy continues to shrink in this small Illinois town.
(Photo: Tricia Simpson, Wikimedia)
2. Provo, Utah
Population: 114,801
Loss over the past year: 1.3 percent
Provo is a real surprise on this list. It actually grew from 2012 to 2013, by 847 people or 0.7 percent, yet this year it shrank by almost twice that much, the Census Bureau says. The bureau has consistently overestimated population growth in Provo. In 1999, it estimated the population at nearly 110,700, but in the official count in 2000, it was about 5,000 people less. In 2009, Census estimates put the population at almost 120,000, but it turned to be closer to 113,000.
Provo is also the home of Brigham Young University, whose student population may also affect the estimated numbers. The university has reported declining enrollment over the past three years, from roughly 30,800 in fall 2012 to 27,200 in fall 2014.
1. Columbus, Georgia
Population: 200,887
Loss over the past year: 1.5 percent
Columbus is unique on this list. Not affected by a rural demographic shift or jobs lost through manufacturing, Columbus’ population shifts are largely due to changes in military assignments.
More than 28,000 Armor School troops, civilians and families relocated from Fort Knox, Kentucky, to Fort Benning, the massive military base east of Columbus. That past influx of troops probably temporarily bumped up Columbus’ population. However, the bump was not quite as large as expected, according to the Ledger-Enquirer, which may help explain the population fluctuations, from a growing town last year to a shrinking town this year.
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