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StumbleForbes: Las Vegas is America’s ‘emptiest’ city
Monday, Feb. 16, 2009 | 4:55 p.m.
America's Emptiest Cities, according to Forbes
- 1. Las Vegas
- 2. Detroit
- 3. Atlanta
- 4. Greensboro, N.C.
- 5. Dayton, Ohio
- 6. Phoenix
- 7. Orlando
- 8. Kansas City
- 9. Jacksonville, Fla.; Indianapolis (tied)
Empty and barren are words typically used to describe the desert that surrounds Las Vegas; however, they are now fitting adjectives for the city itself, according to a Forbes Magazine report.
The magazine ranked Las Vegas the No. 1 "emptiest" city in America. Using numbers from the Census Bureau released earlier this month, Forbes compiled data on homeowner and rental vacancy rates for 75 of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. It's the fallout from the housing boom and bust, Forbes said, that has garnered Las Vegas the undesirable title of "most abandoned."
According to Forbes, the national rental vacancy rate now stands at 10.1 percent, which is up from 9.6 percent a year ago; homeowner vacancy has increased from 2.8 percent to 2.9 percent. In Las Vegas, the rates are significantly higher: 16 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
Las Vegas edged Detroit, which is suffering from the ailments of the sagging automobile industry.
Las Vegas is plagued by foreclosures and falling real estate values. Last year, the Las Vegas metropolitan area ranked second in the nation for its rate of foreclosures. As prices continue to nosedive, homeowners have found themselves burdened with mortgages on homes worth far less now than what they were purchased for when real estate seemed like a sure bet.
The nation’s bright spot is Honolulu, which had a vacancy rate of 5.8 percent for homes and a meager 0.5 percent for rental units.
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Thank you harry Reid. You worked so hard not to allow any energy production of any kind here in the US. Thank you President Obama, your labeling Las Vegas as an extravagance for corporate meeting will double these rates this year.
OMG,Lvegas edged out #2 ranked Detroit,that perennial wasteland of lore..???..If anyone really thinketh that this 790 Billion "bailout" is gonna fix anything,then y'all are seriouslly deluded.Prediction: In 2 years time Las Vegas and enviorins will be primarilly inhabited by roving bands of armed bandits fending off the lesser provisioned homeless scavenging hordes and the whole damn thing will be encircled by national guardsmen.Get out now and prepare yourselves whilst there is still some time....
NevadaNostradamus
Detroit, like many cities in the northeast has blocks upon blocks of old aging abandoned buildings.
They look like war zones.
Las Vegas has nothing like that. It has tons of houses and soon office buildings recently built in the last 10 years that are empty.
JFnance32,
I thnk you are perhaps not.."seeing the forest through the trees"..,or some such thing..Detroit..(french word for."the 3",religous ones)..is much,much older than Las Vegas;and this is why it is such a visual blight as you state.Theoretically;one can have an outwardlly visually appealing city,and have it "blighted" by various other means.The gist of the article at hand here is simply that Vegas ,and all the homes and offices and casinos and highrises ,;as you astutely mention are relatively .."newer"..,and yet the overall vacancy rates are undeniable and increasing.By all accounts,the last great-deppression lasted from 1929-1947 despite FDR's best attempts.It was only the GI's returning from war theaters overseas and the resultant baby-boom ..(of which I am a product therein)..that sparked our economy out of those doldrums.This amounts to an 18 year run of hard economic times and we basically are only on our second year right now.Hell bro;if you insist on being the eternal optimist,then you go for that,dog.I really do not even mind if you are a hardline republican,but be advised that if you show up at my rural and well provisioned Northern HQ's begging for food and shelter in a few years,..I will probably turn you out unto the dark and cold night.
The Detriot and other northern cities blight is a result of decades of spend and high tax policy and crime that chased out taxpayers to the suburbs.
It is not a recent problem for those cities. It has been a problem for a long time. I lived in one of those decaying northern cities some time ago.
Las Vegas problem deals with the housing bubble burst.
It is comparing apples to oranges.
Eventually, Las Vegas will resolve this problem of empty houses and empty office buildings. It might take years or even a decade to fix it.
I think the Northern cities will continue to have its blocks upon blocks of blighted abandoned buildings for a very long time. I am sure if that will ever be fixed.
If nance and other cannot see the similarities to the rust belt then I pitty you. One horse towns have a good 100 year run then they are abandoned. Detroit is over 300 years old as cities go and Vegas is relatively young. However, all Las Vegas has to do is look toward Detroit to see it's future if it continues to rely solely on tourism for it's economic base.
@Blondi,
Sorry but Detroit translates as "strait" not "of 3". French travelers designated all of the waters between Lakes Erie and Huron as the detroit.
JFnance32;
Again ;you are well intentioned,however you clearlly have your socio-economic history and attendant facts wrong.Detroit and several other similar once important metropili in that region can trace their decay and subsequent .."white-flight",,.(to the surrounding suburbs)...to the simple fact that good paying unionized-factory -jobs ..(of which these regions were well renown for,auto and steel,etc..)..have been all but eradicated beginning in the early 1980's,thanks in no small part to NAFTA and other policies.High taxes..(your atypical hardliner republican siren-song)..have absolutely nothing to do with this regions' current demise.High crime rates and urban blight are simply the result of the above stated mass-loss of good-paying factory jobs and resultant relocation therein,.taxes do not have "dick" to do with it.If you are earning 65-85K a year in a factory with a solid union contract,and living in a nice home replete with wife and kids and dog,you will maintain your yard and that will extend to the local neighbourhood as well.When the good union jobs evaporate,the whole enviorins simply .."go-to-hell"....A full 12 ..of..the last 16 years have been governed by Republican presidents,and their anti-labor policies have quite franklly forsaken the .."common-Joe&Jane -Lunchpail"..,thusly and in a roundabout fashion have led to our current demise.We must return to;and support a federal philosophy wherein it is once again okay to manufacture goods in this country on a large scale,and pay those men and women on those jobs a liveable wage.(Yeah,nance,that would mean a whole lot less trips to Wallyworld to buy those inferior chineese products)....
@Blondi,
Amen. We're only a consumer based nation now. We aren't manufacturing or exporting anything to organically grow our economy.
Again,DE-TROIT=the-three,trois is the french word for three(3) as in trois ,de=the,in French.The "Trois" was akin to the father,son,and holy ghost.(the 3)..
I could be wrong,and am man enough to admit it.
National Geographic TV channel just recently profiled a serie entitled.."The race to the bottom"..wherein 2 major US brand names were investigated.DELL computers has had a large presence in county Cork,Ireland ,for well over a decade.(displacing several well-paying jobs from the USA unto the emerald isle..)..Just recently,thet all but shuttered all their operations in Ireland and removed themselves to POLAND.The reasoning here is basically fuelled by unmitigated corporate greed in that the poles will work for substantially less than the irish had been accustomed to earning.This move has apparently created traveling hordes of factory workers throughout the EU that basically follow these USbrand names,and the resultant lesser paying jobs..(sold primarilly in Wal-Mart and other retailers stateside)..HANES brand underwear is the second magacorporation profiled.Hanes has all but shuttered their factories on the east coast;displacing untold and countless decent-paying -union factory jobs.They had initially set up shop in southern china,yet they were not satisfied with that extremely low-wage enviornment that occasionaly produced wildcat-strikes over obviouslly oppressive working sweatshop conditions.In late 2007;Hanesbrand moved operations to HUE,Vietnam.
Hue is by all accounts the longest and bloodiest battlefield in the entire conflict.My older brother died there in'69.Hanesbrand is now apparentlly defiling this sacred battleground of our fallen warriors because the vietnamese will work for .30-.60 cents an hour,even cheaper than the southern chineese.(this is the vietnamese Hue underwear you get on the cheap at Walmart..)..Enough is enough,amigos and amigas.When and where will all this corporate and financial greed end..???We really need to revisit and examine the relative benefits of economic-trade-protectionism,and all that that entails.
Scorpiogal,
It is so refreshing to know that there are others out there like myself whom have both feet solidly planted in the realities at hand.Kudos to you,girl..!!Collectivelly we stand a decent chance to dispel the hollow rhetoric of the likes of jfnance32 and so many other misguided individuals.He must be an offshore factory owner or something,given his diatribes.
Sorry,Scorpiogal,I stand corrected,A wiki-search indicates that indeed it is .."the straits"...In any event we are all collectively in dire global financial straits,thanks in large part to offshoring of good and decent jobs once located in the states,which has now trickled down upon us all.Forsake the middle-class;as has been the republican order-du-jour of late,and all is lost.
It will take years ;if ever,to correct these sins by the so called .."captains-of-industry".Actually;the .."captains of finance"..have been the main perpetrators of our latest demise in that their chuckleforks and minions have basically been given the green light for years to do as they please.
Forbes is full of s. There's a lot worse off places in America than Las Vegas. The whole country is reeling after that fn idiot Texan lead us to destruction.
Detroit was reeling before the housing meltdown. We were not. Detroit will be reeling after the meltdown. We will not. Tourism will recover long before the auto industry. It already is, in fact. The numbers will reflect this soon.
Vegas may be rich with empty homes and businesses today. But when all you really smart people who are reading this go out and buy a home (today would be good) you will have captured one of the best investment opportunities of a lifetime. You know that wasting your time blaming other people for the mess we're in is as unproductive as can be and that it is better to leave that to fools who remain committed to being victims.
So, go buy a house!
Johnevegas;
Great comment, now if only we could afford to buy a house today. We lost ours in Dec 07 mainly because of medical bills. There is not one bank that would give us a loan today to buy another house.
"now if only we could afford to buy a house today"
I know. Me too. But there are a lot of people who can, and they should.
Check the traditional rental market. See what 4 or 5 bedrooms homes are renting for. If you can qualify for a mortgage that will be less than 80% of that rent, I say buy the house and rent it. Be prepared to cover the mortgage when it sits empty, but if you can be aggressive, that wont be too often.
When the market recovers, you'll be sitting on a nest egg. It will generally pay for it's own costs in the meantime, and the tax benefits will help here as well.
Blondi:
Wipe the scales from your otherwise bright eyes, and see the world as it truly is. Las Vegas is no Detroit. Outsourcing is the product of the adoration and instinct of allowing to happen what makes common good sense. For why would we all allow the constrictions of a economically fortressed America to prevent us from reaching out beyond the prison of a unionized culture to grasp the fruits of comparitive advantage that exist throughout a global garden filled with treasures and avantages that neither man nor God created here in this nation? We have but to break into pieces that invisible wall of slavery and protectionism that would otherwise prevent us from reaching out for the advantages and benefits of a global interchange of ideas and produce. It was this very instinct that led to the original discovery of America--an instinct that is as powerful and permanent as humanity,but no more.
Once again neiman1 has shown his ignorance about any relevant facts. Thanks Harry for helping to stop a nuclear dump site at Yuca Mountain that has been deemed unsafe by the most skilled and brilliant scientists in the world. Thanks Harry for stopping the huge coal burning plant north of Las Vegas that would sicken and kill thousands of people with dirty air. There is no such thing as clean coal.Thanks Harry for not jumping on the 'drill baby drill' foolishness of Palin and McCain and other nut jobs that would not tell the truth about how long it would take to realize any benefit from 'drill baby drill'. Thanks Obama for having the nerve to tell CEO's they can not take luxurious vactions to fancy resorts on the American citizens dime and keep asking for more bailout money. There is absolutely no proof about 'doubling rates' this year in Las Vegas. What is proven is neiman1 is a Rush Limbaugh nut job who will blame any Democrat for anything that comes along without any facts proving up his comments. Where was he and his ridiculous posts when his hero Bush ruined America? People are very wise to the immature posts of neiman1.
Forbes is not full of crap. Las Vegas is the new armpit of America. I moved to there 2 years ago from Illinois and I've never encountered so many, rude, uneducated, and poor people in my life. You would think that this is where all the white trash go to hangout. The education system along with their pathetic colleges are a joke. Unemployment will be over 9 percent before the end of the year. Crime, gangbangers, drug dealers, thats what we get. Of course, no one wants to come here anymore. I moved to Washington D.C for a few months and was amazed how much more there was to do here than in Vegas. Living in Vegas made me feel stupid talking to some D.C people that are educated. The Mayor stands up when he is called out but he never stands up when the people are in trouble. Stay clear of this city, this is no place to raise a family, move to the Midwest, they will get over the hump, Vegas wont. They are not trying to make changes and if this little city gets anymore crowded, its gonna be much worse. More crime, more poor people, more unemployment. Yeah, If you like Vegas, you have never been to any other place. This town sucks, stay clear.
gorespawn1---
How do you really feel about Las Vegas? LOL
Oh, this one is for all the investors trying to sway you into buying property there. My advice, only move to where you are gonna be happy. Do you like 6 months of 95+ degree heat. Also, stop comparing Las Vegas to Detroit. First off, Detroit is a hell of alot more important than your dustbowl. We need the car industry. That is called exports my friend. That helps generate economy for the rest of the country. It does not just benefit Michigan. Your gaming industry helps no one but your Nevada elected officials pockets. The country does not live off of your merits. See, uneducated people with their stupid minds. See the thing is, I come from Chicago. Sure, Chicago can be corrupt but guess what. Where there is corruption, there is money. Nevada has no money because you have been the little step child of California for too many years. You have been their pissing ground and now look at the state of California. They are beyond debt and are laying off over 200,000 goverment workers. Vegas will soon follow and it will happen. California was a much smarter and richer state and they will fold. Thats not saying much for Vegas.
Your rants are wrong for several reasons, gorespawn.
First, California is only axing 10,000 jobs right now. That's 10% of their state worker work force. 200,000 is double their total.
Second, while cars are very important to the economy, houses are way more important. While Las Vegas is known for the casino industry, we are also hubs for the travel and construction industries. Lots of people travel here, so we benefit the nation via airlines, buses, and the like. And considering we were one of the fastest growing cities, our construction industry was almost second to none. Construction involves consuming American goods, and having the work done by Americans. All that wood, concrete, glass, plaster, paint, electricity. No that doesn't generate goods, trade, or jobs.
And your whole rant about the uneducated and poor is in very poor taste.
I think gorespawn just had a bad hair day in Las Vegas. I've only been here for five years, so have no long term biases to grind on.
There are pluses and minuses to LV area.But I've met alot of intelligent and well rounded folks here. Gorespawn, I think you were hanging in the wrong places, with the wrong crowd maybe. Maybe had a bad romantic adventure here or something. Anyway, good to see you go. Right now, what we need here are some positive, motivated people dedicated to helping put things together again. Have fun in DC, Chicago ot wherever you go. Adios amigo!
I was born in Detroit. My family moved to LV when I was 9. I remember what Detroit used to look like back in the day. Its very sad to see what it looks like now. Whole neighborhoods of burned out houses. Convienance stores where you have to buy items through bullet proof glass. I go back every couple of years to visit family and I wonder why my relatives remain there. All the older relatives came from Lousiana and moved there in the 50's and 60's to work in the auto plants. Life was good then. Vegas could easily become another Detroit if the economy remains ill. Houses are already empty and falling in disrepair. I hope that all these closely built empty houses dont catch fire because some homeless person squatted in one and built a fire to keep warm.
"Detroit is a hell of alot more important than your dustbowl."
Lived in L.A., S.F. and now Vegas. I'll take Vegas for cost and quality of living. There is no way in hell I would ever even consider moving to Detroit.
Important? Ya, they can't build cars anywhere but in Godforsaken Detroit. And there are so many places in the world exactly like Las Vegas.
Hmmmmm 1 in 10 jobs in the US is dependent on the automotive industry. Gaming? eh not so much.
Gorespawn realizes that all of the "rude" people living in Las Vegas are actually the transplants from the East Coast who can't drive, or behave in an organized society, right? Otherwise, they would not have fled from their hometowns.
Just saying.
1 in 10 jobs......were are you getting your facts from....UAW talking points?????
I read a NY Times article that chew up that "1 in 10 jobs" BS and spit it out as pure garbage.
The "study" which was paid from by surprise surprise...Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers... generated that talking point included jobs from "taxi-driving, travel and advertising companies" and also included jobs related to cars made outside the USA and those made by foreign based car companies.
UAW is going to get the taxpayers to fund their overpriced wages and benefits. We are going to become slaves for UAW workers.
neiman1 Do you honestly believe that corporate junkets will sell homes or fill apartments?
Those 17,000 reservations that State Farm canceled would have help pump some money into some pockets.
Here is some negative PR that was reinforced by our savior Obama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/us/15v...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12344837...
"neiman1 Do you honestly believe..."
I have a problem with this art of your question GBGhostwriter.
First of all, it presumes that neiman can be honest. He can't. Secondly, it presumes that he believes something. He doesn't. Lastly, it presumes that he is a real person. He's not.
Good luck with getting a response from the roboposter. He's mostly about drive-by garbage flinging, not exchanges of intellectual thought.
So gorespawn, are you still living in Las Vegas? If so, why don't you leave if this place is so far beneath you? No one is making you stay here. Move to DC and have fun dodging the bullets whizzing by your head, or back to Chicago and enjoy the -23F wind chills. Bye!
gorespawn1, I left your great Illinios area twent one years ago. Never will go back to unreasonable property taxes,rusted out factories,crime that is in every city big and small,corrupt politicians,weather that is so extreme it causes mental health problems,followed by insects big enought to ride and state income taxes. By your comments you should be back in Cicero now instead of bad mouthing the west. Get moving.
Gorespawn is a creep, and sounds like a sore loser. I love going to Vegas, and the folks who live and work there are a big reason why. As for "rude" thats our thing back here in the east, we enjoy it. I know rude, Vegas in not rude, but gorespawn, thats rude.
I've lived lots of places including the east coast and Las Vegas is the best. Speculators and Harvard MBAs running our casino companies hyperinflated our housing and gaming industries and that has led to the painful burst we are experiencing now... but I have no doubt it will come back because it's a great place to live and has now become very affordable again. At some point, Californians and east coasters will resume bailing from their hassle-laden existences for our cheaper and nicer homes, zero humidity, perpetual sunshine, great outdoor lifestyle, nice people and low taxes.
johnevegas Loved you comment. Thanks!
NEIMAN you need to re-read your facts and stories again.Another suggestion, have the wax removed from your ears so you can hear better after all you seem blind and unable to see clearly.
by the way...once GM goes under they will be no.1
and Vegas #2.
eh, I've tried correcting him on this issue numerous times. He just keeps going at it. Johnevegas is right, he's a roboposter. That or someone posting just to stir the pot.
Then again lots of people seem to be getting ODS, Obama Derangement Syndrom. Symptoms are screaming at the President (less than a month on the job) for everything and anything including: past failed marriages, the price of gas last year, the stock market in November, the reproductive habits of pandas, and many more.
My dog had the runs last night. I'm sure it was Harry Reid and Obama's fault.
"...our savior Obama"
You must have exceptionally low self esteem if Obama looks that way to you. To me he just looks like a man, whose job I would not want for anything in the world.
No, I would rather have the luxury of sitting here in the imagination that I am smarter than all these corrupt politicians, second guess them to death, fling my spatter on them anonymously and without fear of repercussion, and gloat in my intellectual self supremacy.
Know what I mean, Jim?
FWIW: If you get the chance, visit the casinos in Detroit & Windsor - they are first-rate.
LV will recover and be stronger than ever. No one should have expected an indefinite growth boom. Still, it's a nice of a place to live.
Unfortunately, Detroit died during the Johnson administration. The writing was on the wall in 1968 when blocks of the city were torched by rioters. Population has plummeted every year since, and the decrease in the average level of education (brain drain) has been outpacing that. It happened in Philadelphia and other established cities, so it's not a one-town phenomenon.
What might replace these bloated, empty older cities is for them to DIS-incorporate and break up into smaller, more responsive neighborhood-like cities and townships.
Also, the leadership of the 70's and 80's unions and the politicians they bought drove manufacturing from the closed shop states like MI into the right to work states since at least the early 70's. The decent workers were sold false promises by their leaders, who "crawled away" (Allentown reference) when the fruits of their shortsightedness ripened into layoffs and plant closings.
All of the corporate relocations in the last 15 years are depressing and wrong. Stop consuming their cheap products if you really want to do something about it.
My sincere hope is for the small shops to keep U.S. manufacturing alive and keep the good, skilled workers employed, whether unions or no unions.
gorespawn1 And as we all know, there is no crime, illiteracy or poverty in D.C.
Yeah go figure. They named it the Murder Capital of the US because of rent rates.
OK: THIS IS FOR: By LT2LV AND ANYONE ELSE...LOL
"So gorespawn, are you still living in Las Vegas? If so, why don't you leave if this place is so far beneath you? No one is making you stay here. Move to DC and have fun dodging the bullets whizzing by your head, or back to Chicago and enjoy the -23F wind chills. Bye!"
NOW LETS BE FAIR ON BOTH PARTS...OK
FIRST FOR THE RECORD AND FOR ANYONE..WHO MIGHT HAVE "FIGURED" OUT WHO I AM. I AM CURRENTLY LIVING IN DC(4TH GENERATION) I LIVED IN VEGAS FOR 4 1/2 YEARS UP UNTIL AUGUST OF 2008 AND FOR THE RECORD AND FOR ALL OR ETERNITY OR TILL THE END OF THE INTERNET..LOL MAN I LOVED LIVING IN VEGAS! I HOPE AND PRAY I MAKE IT BACK ONE DAY.
NOW FOR VEGAS: I HAD TO COME BACK EAST DUE TO SEVERE ILLNESS OR I WOULD HAVE STAYED...VEEGAS HAS/HAD ALL(EXCEPT MY TYPE OF MEDICAL CARE)I EVER WANTED...OH YEA EMPLOYMENT,AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR THE SICK...BUT THAT IS FOR ANOTHER DAY. AND THERE IS HASH-A-GO-GO IN VEGAS..MY FAVORITE PLACE TO EAT ANYWHERE.
NOW FOR/ ABOUT DC: AS I WROTE THIS, I LIVE IN WARD 7 (THINK THE AREA AROUND LAKE MEAD AND SUNRISE...NOT THE RICH SECTION! PLUS NO MOUNTAINS..WHAT A VIEW FROM SUNRISE) AND I AM NOT AND HAVE NOT HAD TO DUCK FOR BULLETS FLYING PAST OR NEAR MY HEAD. AND THERE ARE PARTS JUST AS BAD AND JUST AS GREAT VEGAS ALSO.
And EVERY place has its +/-'s and if you are going to "sale" the place...be honest.
Now if you want to leave then go...it will leave more room for me when I return...but be don't tell only one side of it...just leave~ They won't miss you~
DC DAVE
homer said "Thanks Harry for stopping the huge coal burning plant north of Las Vegas that would sicken and kill thousands of people with dirty air. There is no such thing as clean coal."
homer, at least keep your argument sensible. I have 3 coal fired power plants within 30 miles, one 7 miles away, and thousands of people have not died from dirty air. In fact, I would wager the air here is cleaner than in Las Vegas. There are people living to their 80's, 90's and 100's here just like every where else. Your passion for your beliefs is admirable, but get your facts straight.
Oh, you wanna rip on D.C, nice one. PLease don't compare yourselves to them. I've run into educated and non-white trash people. That means the opposite of you people. Further more, quite crying about Chicago weather, none of you can afford to live there and winter is only 3 and a half months. Geez, I guess 6 months of 100 degree weather is a better alternative. Also, Las Vegas, USED to be the fastest growing city so do your homework. Salt Lake is kicking your ass in the stat, my friends. Your top industry is casinos and what are all the thousands of high school graduate educated people that get laid off gonna go once they lose their jobs. Come to D.C, you will be homeless, or you can join the thousands of homeless down Freemont.
One more thing, if you state is that great, how is it that education sucks, Healthcare is poor, and housing market is junk. Quit the excuses, your politicians don't care about you, all they are worried about is gaming revenue that does not benefit anyone. Also, when I'm old and retired, I would rather live in New Mexico. As for the rude people, your right, most of them are from New York and New Jersey, and thats ok. They did a study and said that 1 in 4 New Yorkers has a STD so I would be bitter too. Unemployment rate to hit 10percent by end of the year. 10% and the state has a total population of a little more than 3 million. Pathetic, let the recession roll here in Vegas and what happens in Vegas, will indeed stay in Vegas.