The 10 fastest-shrinking US cities and towns
Though the Midwest is experiencing a "doom loop" in many of its cities, in which remote work has slowed the economies of Midwestern cities, only one Midwestern city made the top ten cities and towns shrinking at the fastest rate between 2021 and 2022.
In an analysis of nearly 20,000 cities, towns, villages, and boroughs across the US, the Census Bureau found that places in Utah and Louisiana saw especially sharp declines. That's a change from the previous year, which included San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston in the top 15 declining cities between July 2020 and 2021.
Jackson, Mississippi, topped the list with a year-over-year decline of 2.5%, amounting to a net loss of about 4,000 residents. Some residents left following the city's water crisis, sparked by poor infrastructure and climate change. Jackson's population has slowly declined since 1980, as many white and middle-class Black families moved out.
"The legacy of racial zoning, segregation, legalized redlining have ultimately led to the isolation, separation and sequestration of racial minorities into communities (with) diminished tax bases, which has had consequences for the built environment, including infrastructure," Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland, told PBS last year in a story about Jackson's water crisis.
Though the Midwest is experiencing a "doom loop" in many of its cities, in which remote work has slowed the economies of Midwestern cities, only one Midwestern city made the top ten cities and towns shrinking at the fastest rate between 2021 and 2022.
In an analysis of nearly 20,000 cities, towns, villages, and boroughs across the US, the Census Bureau found that places in Utah and Louisiana saw especially sharp declines. That's a change from the previous year, which included San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston in the top 15 declining cities between July 2020 and 2021.
Jackson, Mississippi, topped the list with a year-over-year decline of 2.5%, amounting to a net loss of about 4,000 residents. Some residents left following the city's water crisis, sparked by poor infrastructure and climate change. Jackson's population has slowly declined since 1980, as many white and middle-class Black families moved out.
"The legacy of racial zoning, segregation, legalized redlining have ultimately led to the isolation, separation and sequestration of racial minorities into communities (with) diminished tax bases, which has had consequences for the built environment, including infrastructure," Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland, told PBS last year in a story about Jackson's water crisis.
Yesterday ABC 7 Washington ran an unfortunately all too common story headlined, “Shoplifting threatens closure of SE DC grocery store, creating potential food desert.”
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