by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

If America is heading in the right direction, why have so many of our major cities become cesspools of violence, drugs, theft, trash and homelessness?  Once upon a time, millions of young people from all over America flocked to our rapidly growing metropolitan areas.  Today, there is a mass exodus out of our largest metropolitan areas due to the absolutely deplorable conditions.  If you are not yet convinced that we are a nation in decline, spend some time wandering around our core urban areas.  The shiny new cities that previous generations of Americans built for us are degenerating at a pace that is absolutely stunning.

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Just look at what is happening to New York.  A couple of decades ago, it was still in relatively good shape.

But now it is going down the tubes really fast.

A shopping mall in the Big Apple that cost a billion dollars to build just ten years ago is being permanently shut down because conditions in the city have become so intolerable…

A MAJOR city mall with dozen of stores is planning to shut up shop as America’s theft epidemic continues to batter businesses.

Retail operator Westfield announced that it intends to end its lease and sever all operations with the Fulton Center in Lower Manhattan.

Westfield put pen to paper on a two-decade long lease in 2014.

However, as levels of theft and homelessness continue to spiral, the company have decided to forego the contract 10 years early.

Westfield has cited soaring crime and quality of life concerns as their reason for terminating the lease.

Yes, things really are that bad.

Walking away from a billion dollar project is not an easy decision, but Westfield apparently has come to the conclusion that conditions are not going to improve any time soon.

Just because a city was great at one time does not mean that it will always be great.

Detroit was once one of the greatest cities on the entire planet, but now it has become a cautionary tale…

Detroit was once the symbol of the mighty industrial power of America. It was the home of the “Big Three” American car companies that dominated car production around the world. It was America’s success at developing a large industrial middle class.

Today one finds articles like the Guardian’s “The Death of a Great American City: why does anyone still live in Detroit?” So what has happened to what was once one of the greatest Rust Belt cities? The story of Detroit is a much larger tale of what has been happening in the city of Gary in Indiana – a ghost town in the making.

Other major cities should learn from what has happened to Detroit.

But instead, many of them are making the exact same mistakes.

Years of progressive policies have turned some of our most appealing cities into horror shows.

It wasn’t too long ago that the glamour of Hollywood drew in visitors from all over the globe, but now Hollywood is absolutely packed with homeless encampments…

A large Hollywood Boulevard homeless encampment that residents say is a hotspot for selling and buying drugs, a trash-strewn tent city they say took the city three months to clear, has sparked continued concern as unhoused residents are already returning to the location.

The encampments are a persistent problem plaguing neighborhoods not just in Hollywood but across greater Los Angeles.

Conditions are similar up north in San Francisco.

I have written extensively about the hordes of addicts that wander aimlessly through the streets.  These addicts leave trash and human excrement wherever they go, and as a result San Francisco is an extremely filthy city today.

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