Half of America’s Cities Are Depopulating. We Could Be Headed for a Ghost Town Era.

2026-06-24 15:21 UTC

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: By studying population trends and forecasting models, researchers have come to believe that nearly 15,000 U.S. cities will face noticeable depopulation by 2100. Populated areas of the cities in question could experience a decline of up to 44 percent. Projections call for the biggest drops in city populations to occur in the Northeast and Midwest.

Replies (7)

@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-06-25 04:16

The US is also suffering from a low fertility rate, at 1.79 (population replacement rate is 2.1), which we made up for in the 20th century by lots of immigration. (This is one of the factors that informs the great replacement myth, as non-whites approach outnumbering whites in the US. A vocal minority sees this as a bad thing, especially since whites tend to vote Republican and Blacks tend to vote Democrat). I find it odd and fascinating that the ownership class is terrified by the notion of a lowering population – babies allegedly grow up to be workers after all – but are not willing to pass policy to support child rearing, and depend entirely on tradwife propaganda and restricting contraception access and abortion access. It’s especially a problem since our economy is based entirely on growth, with lots of young people providing support for elders. The US is not unique with this problem. South Korea, Japan and Italy (actually the whole EU) also have low rates and are trying to implement changes to improve fertility, and so far to little effect.

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@AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 2026-06-24 15:55

If it’s a shift from a labour-intensive agrarian economy, that’s to be expected. A similar thing happened in Iceland, and due to the small scale of the country, it is very noticeable. Some 2/3 of the population live in the greater capital area, and beyond that, the countryside is dotted with abandoned farmsteads slowly falling apart.

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@floofloof@lemmy.ca 2026-06-24 15:35

Sounds like the USA needs more immigration.

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@schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-24 15:30

Total lack of social/ecoomic context as I’d expect from PM.

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@LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2026-06-24 18:15

they must all be coming to Seattle. The city council here worships the gods of Density, and bends over backwards to give density developers anything they want. Den-sit-tee! Den-sit-tee! No escaping that for me!

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@strawberry_enjoyer42@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-06-24 16:07

I long to join them by moving to Canada.

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@SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 2026-06-25 16:03

For people who don't know this most cities are built upon the concept that they are constantly growing and receiving more taxes than the year before. It's basically a Ponsi scheme. This works perfectly fine if there is always money coming in. When people and businesses leave the money stops coming in, then everything starts to fall apart quickly. Have you ever wondered why formerly prosperous places like Detroit and Gary went to absolute hell. It's because they started to lose people and business. When the city cost more to operate than what is coming in from taxes, you become the murder capital of America.

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