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Housing Bust: The New Declining Cities

By Anonymous

From Alejandro Lazo at the LA Times: Housing bust creates new kind of declining city

"Some neighborhoods are going to suffer tremendously or are never going to come back or come back very, very slowly," said James R. Follain, senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government ...

Potential candidates for long-term decline named by the study are the areas hit hardest by the drop in home prices in recent years. They include several inland California metropolitan areas that grew rapidly during the boom, including Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Riverside and San Bernardino. Las Vegas and Miami also made the list.

A traditional city in decline is one that has suffered a sustained population drop, leaving behind empty houses, apartment buildings, offices and storefronts. Cleveland and Detroit, for instance, suffered from the erosion of manufacturing and the loss of residents, who left in search of jobs.

Instead of eroding a particular industry, however, the housing bust left a glut of homes because of overbuilding and the foreclosure crisis. Follain argues that the future of these cities is threatened in similar ways to that of Rust Belt cities.

Here is the report: A Study of Real Estate Markets in Declining Cities

There is a "particular industry" gone in these new declining cities - construction!

Earlier: Employment Report Preview

Full post as published by Calculated Risk on January 07, 2011 (boomark / email).