America's "Forgotten Cities"

The website 24/7 Wall St. examines ten of the most serious cases of urban decline in the U.S., speculating that some of them will "never recover."

"The economy has evolved so much since the middle of the 20th Century that many cities that were among the largest and most vibrant in America have collapsed. Some have lost more than half of their residents. Others have lost the businesses that made them important centers of finance, manufacturing, and commerce [The 10 "dead cities" on their list include:]

Buffalo [which] was wounded irreparably by the de-industrialization of America; Flint...[which] had almost 200,000 residents in 1960 and has fewer than 100,000 today; Hartford...once the 'insurance capital of the world,' the city's population peaked at more than 177,000 and has dropped to 124,000 recently; Cleveland had 914,000 residents in 1950. The figure is below 480,000 today; New Orleans...In the year after [Katrina], the population dropped to just above 250,000, down from 627,000 in 1960."

Rounding off the list are Detroit, Albany, Allentown, Atlantic City and Galveston.