With a name like Hamtramck, it was destined for failure.

adapt or die

@Canino: Well, it is a city within the city of Detroit. Once can only assume the bleak, depressing smog that the incinerator creates is squared once it falls over the 2 mile radius of this tiny city.

Really though, Hamtown's got the best bars and amazing Polish and Middle Eastern food. The unemployment rate is probably due to all the Grosse Pointe/Bloomfield Hills/South Lyon hipsters that keep moving there and have their parents pay rent so they can spend their earnings from selling "art" on cocaine and booze.

I live in Kokomo -- it's completely true. If the auto industry goes belly up, so does Kokomo. We never changed with the times.

@Canino: That little bit about being completely surrounded by Detroit probably doesn't add to the atmosphere either.

Something else to be depressed about...

And Detroit's not on the list (yet)?

I'm not some ignorant outsider; I drive through it every day.

Southwest Detroit's been growing, but is that enough to compensate for the city as a whole? Or has even their growth stopped? Detroit's already so decayed that maybe it's no longer sinking?

For you outsiders, we often say "I'm from Detroit" to give you geographical reference, without it really being true. Southeast Michigan is (currently) still a pretty nice place.

wow bensenville is only 4 miles from my work.

Ah, Bensenville. Home to obstructionist NIMBYs who thought they should spend their time and money fighting Chicago over O'Hare's expansion.

Statistically, Forbes is right about Bensenville. But the reason they give is completely wrong. The reason why incomes are dropping and in-migration is dropping is because after 20 years of the City of Chicago taking over homeowners' land to build new O'Hare runways, nobody in their right mind wants to move there.

@balthisar: The last time I was in downtown Detroit (about 1 year ago), it seemed to me the biggest industry there was automobile storage management. As in "parking lots".

I stayed at a Hilton Garden near the stadiums, and the taxes were around $40/night. That sort of thinking told me all I needed to know about the brain trust that was running the city.

I thought where I lived was doing bad, but I would have really gotten creeped out if it was on the list. Lots of manufacturing, lots of jobs going down the tubes, especially here. Sadly, when the economy isn't diverse, it goes pfft more easily.

Wait, wait, wait...

Spanish Lake, MO????

I grew up in North St. Louis (Florissant) and know Spanish Lake veerrry well (my high school was on the edge of Bellefontaine Neighbors & Spanish Lake - no, not Riverview Gardens HS). There are no factories or major companies there (a Pipefitters Union hall is about it). It's primarily residential and the only job you can really think about getting is at one of the elementary schools, Ponticello's Italian Restaurant, a gas station, or one of the mom & pop stores. Spanish Lake has never had high-paying or highly-skilled jobs. It's a residential municipality of St. Louis (which has 79 municipalities).

I can't speak for the other areas, but Spanish Lake shouldn't even be on this list.

I'm surprised Syracuse or Utica aren't on the list. Possibly the two saddest cities in the US. The university and hospitals are the only major employers in Syracuse, and the crime rate is awful.

@cheera: I grew up in a Polish neighborhood. "Amazing" and "Polish food" really don't belong in the same sentence, unless the sentence is, "It's amazing I haven't had a heart attack yet from eating all that fatty, bland Polish food."

Middle Eastern food, on the other hand, can indeed be amazing.

That's where I want to go....way down to Kokomo.
I'm guessing that Kokomo, IN isn't the one the beach boys were singing about.

San Angelo, Texas is also THRIVING. Cough.

They need monorails just like Ogdenville and North Haverbrook.

@shorty63136: It seems to me like they just looked up a few statistics to choose the towns on the list, and then did a cursory Google of the towns to see if they could figure out what was happening.

@rpm773: When I tell people "I'm from Detroit" they tend to stop talking to me.

this hbo documentary is an excellent look into the slow death of america's rust belt: [www.hbo.com]

it's about sub-nascar racing in anderson, indiana. while that may not interest most of you (myself included), i was intrigued by the decline portrayed in the film. you watch the entire town collapses upon itself when the largest employer (an auto parts manufacturer for one of the big 3) shuts its doors.

definitely worth the watch if you have hbo, but you might want to tivo it - a quick look at the schedule places recent viewings in the early morning infomercial time slot.

I went to school in the Grandview district for two years in the early 80's... that place was a pit back then and I don't know that it got any better in the meantime.

@balthisar: It's kind of a bell-shaped curve. Once you've reached a certain level of "died", the rate tapers off.

And they do have a Detroit community and a Flint suburb, so it's covered.

(In Grand Rapids, on the west side of the state, I feel like I'm clinging to the tilting deck on the opposite side of the ship, that's jutting unnaturally up out of the water as the whole thing sinks. Yes M!ch!gan!)

@FLEB: Wait... logarithmic curve. That's the one.

@jodles: Has it always been like that? I know sometimes college towns are like that because they'd always been like that.

While Columbia, MO (Mizzou/UM-Columbia) has more jobs than it has in previous years, it wouldn't be anything if Mizzou wasn't there.

@Illiterati: I think it has to do with me not being Polish. I also regard Grandma's Filipino egg rolls as "part of what we have for any holiday dinner", whereas the rest of existence has tried bartering their firstborn for my grandmothers recipe. All in what you don't grow up around I suppose.

I can't say Bensenville's inclusion on this list surprises me. We lived in an apartment there in the late 70's and early 80's. Even then, the town was trying to fight off O'Hare expansion projects. It wasn't too bad a town then, as long as you had the foresight to ensure that you didn't live directly under the runway approach or departure paths. Half of the people that worked at O'Hare (including yours truly) lived in that area. Planes would go over so low outbound that their radio calls would come over my stereo's speakers.

I went back in the late 1980's and the character of the neighborhoods had completely changed from middle-class white to a lower-class mixed neighborhood. It was obvious even then that the incomes had fallen drastically. What factories and businesses that had been there were long gone 15 years later.

I think Bensenville's future will be as another airline ramp or airport parking lot unless something happens soon. Kind of sad to see it happen.

@shorty63136: I believe Syracuse used to flourish with the mining and steel industries of the last century but within the past 50 years it's become really slummy and gross. And the horrible weather doesn't help much either. There's just nothing there to save it.

I used to be a funeral director in Bensenville so I'm getting a kick out of...

The mayor is a stubborn prat who should just let the town die.

I grew up in Decatur, GA and could walk to Candler-McAfee, GA and to be very honest, I've never heard anyone refer to that area as "Candler-McAfee, GA" Knowing what I know about Candler, this list is suspect. The area is all residential and few apartment complexes sprinkled in and plenty work around the area. Its a bit weird to see this on the list and why wouldn't Decatur be on the list as well?

Last night, I had a pretty eerie dream about the economy. Things had gotten so bad, nobody could get any money out of any ATMs or banks, checks were worthless, and people were desperately searching for cash to feed their families. People were told to stay in their homes and martial law was iminent, people were loading their firearms to defend their property.

I realize it's just a dream (well a nightmare) but it had a really profound impact on me. So now whenever I read something like this, I get a little bit sad :-\

Well, at least nowhere in NJ is listed. I feel sorry for those towns though.

@sir_eccles: By golly it put them on the map...

@B: Nope, the song's about a resort in Islamorada, Florida.

Oddly enough, my home town of Toledo, OH isn't on that list.

The "Big 3" all have major facilities here, and there are many ancillary auto related shops that feed into the factories. Needless to say, the Unions run this town. They run it right into the ground.

Who'da thunk it?

@balthisar: so true. "Im from detroit" is purely used to tell west coast ppl who have never traveled to mich a location. i grew up in the ypsilanti/ann arbor area.....and 97% of SE Mich gets a bad rep.

and hamtramck has some great food and places to see bands, as does downtown detroit....but is not that nice :-/

@shorty63136: No, Syracuse and Utica are (or were) industrial towns. Ithaca is a college town.

To put it in perspective, Utica's population in 1950 was 105,000. In 2000, it's 60,000. Syracuse had 221,000 people in 1950. Now it's 147,000. We ain't dead, but we're on life support.

I find it interesting that there's no mention of any place at or near the west coast. Are we just that awesome, or is it more due to having a more varied economy? Maybe a west coast bias? Personally I woulda figured smaller parts of the Sacramento area would be in here, but I've never really liked Sac.

@jodles: My girlfriend is from Syracuse. I agree, it's a pretty crappy city without much there. Sucky thing is that she might end up going to school there for a year so I might end up going there as well. Bah.

The only possible thing going for it is that it's supposed to build a huge environmental research facility. But with the economic problems, I doubt that's gonna happen.

Of course, 2 cities in Ohio are listed. I wonder what this says about the state?

Asheboro?! Good lord, the home of the NC Zoo is on the skids? Who knew.

Honestly, I find it interesting. The major metro areas nearby are still growing thanks to the medical, biotech, and technology industries. I coulda sworn that Asheboro's population was picking up due to urban sprawl and whatnot. Meh, hopefully the NC Zoo doesn't suffer.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this is sensationalist crud made up by Forbes because people pay attention to it, despite the fact that it seems to be based on random factors that have little significance on their own and even less when grouped together.

Short version: Forbes makes this shit up.

Where do people get the naïve notion that anything or any human contruction has a right to last forever?

History is replete with instances of environmental change causing entire cultures to uproot themselves or die out. And when I say history, I'm talking about 20, 200 and/or 2000 years ago.

@bobbycreekwater: I've never heard of it being called that either. 3 years ago I did live in the Oakhurst/East Lake community on the south side of Decatur. We were renting a house on a nice street, but a half a block away (2 minutes walking) was a place you didn't want to be late at night by yourself. Candler is even worse. Decatur itself is still holding strong.

@shorty63136:

Spent 4 years in Scranton, it's the same there, all the young people with any future run for the hills, everything in the valley is a shrinking gene pool with corrupt government, being supported by the U.

@jodles:

2 years ago I was driving across upstate NY with my wife and her parents (they are Danish). After driving through Syracuse my father in law commented that it was the most depressing looking place he's seen. Take into consideration that he's lived in the Czech Republic for the past 15 years and has done extended consulting engagements in places like Albania, Macedonia, Uzebekistan etc and it's quite a powerful statement on the suckitude of the cuse.

ditto Grandview, MO, which is just a municipality of Kansas City.@shorty63136:

@logicalnoise: Careful that their joblossitis doesn't infect your town.

@MisterE: It says that Ohio used to be part of the central manufacturing hub of the United States?

Youngstown is a cesspool. Once GM pulls out, it will stop being a horrible crime ridden place to live and will be only a horrible crime ridden place.

The only thing keeping us folk down here in Dayton afloat is the military base. (And arguably reynolds and reynolds and NCR... but with the recession going the way that it is, and their terrible "hire the lowest bidder" HR practices... I'd say that it's mostly Wright Patterson keeping us alive.)