The tiny, 4,000 person port town of Valdez on Alaska’s south coast is an amazing place if you enjoy the great outdoors. With the wild, protected waters and the peaks of the Chugach Mountains that dominate the surrounding landscape. But not everyone wants to feel as if they’re actually living in the wild, at least not all the time.
The main reason behind this city’s shedding population could be the high unemployment rate, plus the cold weather means people bask in the snow when it’s -20 degrees F outside!
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford saw its population shrink by 5 percent last year. The reason? Hartford is not a great place to live; it's not visually appealing, and it isn't safe either. To add to that, economic problems at the state level aren't helping, while crime and the cost of living are headaches for residents.
Basically, everything needs to change in Hartford, starting with improving the roads to expanding their education system.
Tuskegee, Alabama
Tuskegee has very little to offer it's residents, with few job opportunities, limited housing, expensive electrical bills. Tuskegee has a couple of run-down parks and sketchy nightclubs.
Even for this small town, the sense of community is lacking so much so that 13% of its residents decided to pack up and leave! This city also has a high unemployment rate of 10%, which is twice as much as the entire state of Alabama.
Buffalo, New York
The decline of our Buffalo can be traced to the severe but relatively gradual evaporation of an important industry. We can't blame people for leaving Buffalo, without any proper industry, you're left with terrible weather - we would say it's winter most of the time!
And then there's the city's housing market which might be more affordable than some other places, but most residences are old and falling apart, and if that wasn't enough, the taxes are very high.
Cleveland, Ohio
Out of the largest U.S. cities with 300,000 people or more, only five – including Cleveland – have a population that is now smaller than even just five years ago. Cleveland is extremely dreary with all of the rain in the fall, but besides the bad weather, the city needs some serious help if it wants to stop shedding so many citizens.
It may not be the worst place to raise a family, but it's also not the best place either. Basically, the city needs to improve their school and repair their roads.