This constitutes abysmal news, overall, but probably explains an awful bloody lot about the state of the people living in these parts. When everything around you has been dying for a long time, it can be rather difficult to keep your head up. It's a wonder they don't just make it easier, and put Effexor in the water supply, although that'd probably still be contraindicative with some folks. Yeah, okay, I can see where the lawsuits would probably outweigh any positives, but speaking from Detroit, in the wake of the whole Kwame Kilpatrick mess.....mixed nuts, anyone?
THE FOLLOWING IS EXCERPTED FROM MSN.COM
It’s been another rough decade for the Rust Belt. And things really aren’t rosy in Ohio, which is home to three of the top five cities that are fading away.
By Joshua Zumbrun, Forbes
The turmoil of the mortgage market granted a temporary reprieve from hearing about the woes of America's Rust Belt. That doesn't mean things are better. Despite a decade of national prosperity, the former manufacturing backbone of the United States is in rougher shape than ever, still searching for some way to replace its long-unused smokestacks.
Where's it worst? Ohio, according to Forbes’ analysis, racked up three of the top five cities on the list: Youngstown, Canton and Dayton. The runner-up is Michigan, with Flint in the top five and Detroit not very far behind.
These metropolitan statistical areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, face fleeing populations, painful waves of unemployment and barely growing economies. By Forbes’ measure, they've struggled the worst of any areas in the nation in the 21st century. And they face even bleaker futures.
It wasn't always this way. Despite years of economic decline, in the first years of the new century the employment situation did not look so bad — 3% to 4% unemployment was the norm, along the lines of metropolitan areas elsewhere in the country. The rest of the decade has not been so kind. Thanks to a crushing downturn for automakers like General Motors and Ford, Detroit and Flint, Mich., have seen unemployment approach 10%.
Another brutal statistic all the cities share is a diminishing population. So far this decade, nearly 30,000 people have moved out of Youngstown, and they aren't being replaced by either new babies or new immigrants. (Cleveland, a bigger Ohio city with a similar economic plight, has seen 115,000 people leave.)
The cities found to be struggling don't vary widely by age of population, and this factor had little influence in the rankings. The oldest city in the top 10, Scranton, Pa., had 45% of its people over 45; the youngest, Flint had 38% over 45.
The worst news is, of course, economic. When Forbes looked at the most recent gross domestic product estimates for 155 metropolitan statistical areas estimated to have $10 billion or more GDP in 2005 — economies about the size of Asheville, N.C., or Tallahassee, Fla. — the news was predictably terrible for the Rust Belt.
In fall 2007, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published its GDP estimates from 2001 to 2005. Nearly every city in the country grew during this period (New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina, was the notable exception), but the struggling cities on Forbes’ list grew more sluggishly. None of them grew more than 1.9% a year, versus a nationwide average of 2.7%. Canton managed to grow its economy just 0.7% annually. Flint was worse still at 0.4%.
None of these cities have suffered the huge declines in real-estate prices seen by Phoenix, Miami or Las Vegas, where the Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows nearly 30% declines from a year ago. But don't call it a silver lining; prices never went up in the first place.
The top 5 fastest dying American cities
1. Canton, Ohio
2. Youngstown, Ohio
3. Flint, Mich.
4. Scranton, Pa.
5. Dayton, Ohio

It doesn't help perceptions, not even my own. And I just went to the Woodward Dream Cruise last weekend, which served as much as anything to underscore the harsh realities of life in Detroit; most of the action at the Woodward Dream Cruise actually happens in the suburbs, the only place that's had anything to do with the automotive industry anywhere along the route is the terminus in Pontiac, historic home of that particular GM division, although, like all the rest, even Pontiac Division is now housed in the Renaissance Center (there's almost a cruel joke in that name now,) in downtown Detroit. Where noone else wants to be. And 90% of the action at the Dream Cruise was classic musclecars, once again underscoring that Detroit's best years seem to be in the nearly-forgotten past. The only promising new car I saw was the new Dodge Challenger, but at $41,000 and change for a loaded SRT, it's clear there isn't one in my immediate future; never mind the gas mileage, which, though it's probably better than the original Challenger of 1970, is still a long way from "green." And even my automotive attentions have been eclipsed by the new Nissan Maxima, which looks to wanna kick a*s and take names. And the upcoming Volkswagen Scirocco, provided they don't assemble it at VW's perpetually-union-aspirant-thus-perpetually-labor-troubled Mexican plant. It works out to be a big "we'll see," more than anything.

In other news, in case you missed the article in the Wall Street Journal, Congress has declared May 5-9 National Subsitute Teacher Recognition Week. I kid you not. And, okay, much as I appreciate such a thought, much as any teacher who's "paid their dues," as such, I'm sure does....Geez, guys, we couldn't find something a little more pertinent to the welfare of the nation to work on?! We spent the summer with gas over $4 a gallon, the mortgage loan and banking sectors in a shambles and the spirit of Jimmy Hoffa being channeled through Paris Hilton, (although rumors of this last item are as yet unconfirmed,) and what's their priority? Recognizing the otherwise unheralded. There's enough of a holiday for those who would otherwise go unrecognized, it's called Memorial Day. How 'bout some real recognition, like, say, funding NCLB the way it should be, or improving student loan availability and teacher compensation, so we can get more people willing to go into education?! Now, there's some recognition! Other than that, maybe I can hope for a good month's supply of Peperos, a shortbread-ish sweet in stick form, sometimes topped with chocolate, my students in Korea gave me on "Teacher's Day." That'd work too.