Newport might be a small and humble city, but it has been a big part of Kentucky life and served as a favorite for stars like Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, and Dean Martin. From the 1920s to the 1960s, Newport was known as America’s Playground, but following its heyday, the population has been in a steady state of decline.
Newport has been experiencing increasing crime rates, which may be why the city is encountering such a dip in population. Between 200 and 2010, there was a 10% drop in population, with a further 1.7% reduction in the 2018 official count.
Coffeyville, Kansas
Most of the time, economic hardships are behind a population’s decline, which seems to be the case for Coffeyville, Kansas. The whole County of Montgomery is shrinking, with one of the bustling cowtowns in Kansas experiencing the largest drop after losing an estimated 9% of its residents over the last ten years.
Coffeyville used to be the host of an Amazon warehouse which employed 10,000 people in the area. However, the company decided to remove itself from Coffeyville in 2014, resulting in thousands of job losses, which only worsened when Southwire, another large manufacturer, also shut its doors.
Lawton, Oklahoma
Lawton is situated in the southwestern part of Oklahoma, near to the Wichita Mountains in Comanche County, and it was once the third-largest city in Oklahoma. Still, as times have changed, Lawton has slowly lost its citizens to other cities in the state and across the nation.
The municipality annexed Fort Sill hoping that it would bring vibrancy back to Lawton's life, but that couldn't change the city's fate. Joining Fort Sill did affect a slight influx of people according to the 2010 census, but in 2018 there was a 4.1% decrease in Lawton's inhabitants.
Flint, Michigan
With the water crisis in Flint being well-documented, the city has become one of North America's most impoverished. General Motors was once the reason behind Flint's booming population, but reducing its operations led to a decline in available jobs.
Back in the 60s, Flint’s population was 196,000, but fast-forward to 2018, and that number has shrunk to 95,943, meaning the city has lost more than half of its people.
Fairmont, Minnesota
Nowadays, many people in Fairmont, Minnesota, have fallen on difficult times. Within the early months of 2015, the city lost Fairmont Foods, and when this significant employer closed, the city’s hospital also started having financial problems. In 2019 rent prices soared to almost 50% higher than the average income in Fairmont, meaning people were being out-priced of the city.
Considering everything, it’s not a massive surprise that Fairmont has lost 5.4% of its residents since 2010, with economic hardships on the rise.