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Daily Real Estate News | March 20, 2009 | America's Incredible Shrinking Cities
American cities with populations that are shrinking fastest are some of the grittiest.

Forbes.com come has ranked the top-10 cities with the largest declines in population. It found four of those cities in Ohio, including Youngstown, whose population has fallen the most of any large city in the country.

Supporters of these areas, which were almost all industrial powerhouses at one time, say they have their charms and need better promotion.

But Sean Safford, a professor of business at the University of Chicago and author of Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown: The Transformation of the Rust Belt, says the decline has more to do with business infrastructure.

"It's about competitive companies," he says. "We'd all like to think that Seattle is popular because it's cool, but come on, it's because of Amazon and Microsoft: companies that generate cash. They're not stuck in the past."

Here are the 10 metro areas among the nation’s 125 largest whose populations have declined the most, according to U.S. Census data released this week.

Youngstown, Ohio
Flint, Mich.
Cleveland, Ohio
Detroit, Mich.
Dayton, Ohio
Buffalo, N.Y.
Toledo, Ohio
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Lansing, Mich.
Providence, R.I.

Source: Forbes.com, Lauren Sherman (03/19/2009)