Struggling Cities Meet to Brainstorm Survival Strategies

Representatives from a handful of the country's "fastest-dying cities" met recently in Dayton, Ohio to try to figure out how they could revive their economies and reverse the decline that has been slowly strangling them of jobs, money and people.

August 14, 2009, 9am PDT | Nate Berg

Each city shared ideas about how to lure people back to town, how entrepreneurship could be encouraged and how to utilize now-empty space.

"What emerged was a sense of desperation over the difficulty of rebounding from both real problems -- declining populations, dwindling tax bases -- and perceived woes."

"...Representatives of Dayton, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo; Canton and Youngstown, Ohio; Flint, Mich.; and Charleston, W.Va., took turns talking about their plans. There was little discussion of how cities might pay for the initiatives."

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'Fastest Dying Cities' Meet for a Lively Talk

Published on Thursday, August 13, 2009 in The Wall Street Journal