Manufacturing’s Decline Is Turning These US Cities Into Economic Wastelands [Infographic]

Detroit, a former manufacturing boomtown, filed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy earlier this month, on July 18. But Detroit isn’t the only former manufacturing boomtown to have fallen on hard times -- nine out of 10 of the economically weakest cities in the U.S. are former major manufacturing centers, according to a recently released JPMorgan report.

Like Detroit, most of these cities reached their peak in the 1960s. But since then, while other American cities grew in population -- the national average increase in population is 72 percent -- people left many manufacturing hubs in droves, to find better jobs and escape increasing crime rates.

Here’s an infographic with insights on the decline of former manufacturing boomtowns:

Hat Tip Matthew Phillips.