America's "Fast-Dying Cities" Pine for Resuscitation

When you're a dying Rust Belt city and you find yourself on a "top 10" list of the worst, it doesn't help that bloggers and radio DJs call your town a basket case. So opens a Wall Street Journal piece about an Ohio meeting of representatives from those 10 cities to discuss what to do about their economic slide. The story describes a sense of desperation over the ability to rebound.

The meeting came about after Forbes published a story called "America's Fastest Dying Cities." Ohio's outlook stacks up as the worst, with four of its cities on the top ten list: Canton, Cleveland, Dayton and Youngstown. Michigan is second with Detroit and Flint on the list.

A painful little twist ends the Forbes story. The writer points out that at least these hurting cities don't face a huge drop in real estate prices the way Las Vegas and Miami have.

But that's only because prices didn't go up to begin with.