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Random Quiz
Random Geography
Can you name the US cities which have lost 50,000 or more residents between 1970 and 2010?
created by
nrsilver
Enter a city in the box below
Correctly named cities will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Source:
US Census
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Growing American Cities
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PLAY GAME
Enter city:
0
/23 cities correct
06:00
Show Missed Answers
Change in Population
City
1970 Population
-797,705
1,511,482
-671,359
3,366,957
-422,063
1,948,609
-354,088
750,903
-302,942
622,236
-284,798
905,759
-249,642
593,471
-214,113
520,117
-201,458
462,768
-154,787
756,510
-122,226
717,099
-119,188
452,524
Change in Population
City
1970 Population
-105,277
382,417
-102,071
243,601
-96,610
383,818
-95,194
175,415
-90,883
193,317
-85,668
296,233
-76,315
275,425
-73,207
139,788
-72,112
300,910
-65,148
307,951
-52,038
197,208
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There are
47 comments
for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)
Shrinking US Cities (1970-2010) Quiz
by
nrsilver
Created Dec 29, 2009 in
Geography
Featured Oct 3, 2012
Game Plays 31,053
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City Quizzes
Population Quizzes
losing
resident
1970
2010
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Archived comments:
show them
eja82
:
Dec 29th, 2009 at 22:17 GMT
6 points
great quiz!
cocky
:
Dec 29th, 2009 at 23:20 GMT
10 points
Its sad what happened to Detroit. lost over 1/3 of its population.
expat
:
Dec 29th, 2009 at 23:36 GMT
10 points
pays to know your rust belt ... former Syracuse resident
raggedyanne
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 00:08 GMT
4 points
Wow. People seem to be leaving Ohio in droves.
DSherman
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 01:15 GMT
4 points
I may be from Dayton, Ohio but at least I go to school in Columbus, Ohio now, haha, sad Ohio has the most cities, by 4, OUCH.
jsftrey
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 01:32 GMT
10 points
Chronicles the loss of industry in the US. I would like to see the corresponding quiz for the cities that gained - probably a lot of cities in the SE and SW US.
Mapmaker
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 03:51 GMT
2 points
Good to see another U of C alum writing quizzes! I kept guessing Michigan cities instead of the two I missed.
mellocrush19
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 04:23 GMT
-2 points
Detroit represent!
Barzuniac
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 08:28 GMT
5 points
Agree with jsftrey. This, along with the corresponding most-gains quiz (presumably south atlantic coast, Texas, and SW/Cali), chronicles the death of the United States. Industry died, we stopped producing anything, and all the people, rich and spoiled from the labors of generations of people who actually produced things, fled for the sun and the sand.
The
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 15:02 GMT
-1 points
Looks like people are trying to flee the cold weather...
mikeinpurple
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 18:32 GMT
7 points
Chicago people just went to the suburbs. :P
HarryNJ
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 18:51 GMT
4 points
Norfolk is a bit surprising. Anyone have any insight on this one?
elnok
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 20:34 GMT
7 points
I love it when my hometown's a Sporcle answer... just not this time :( (Let's Go, Buffalo!)
UselessKnowledge
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 21:50 GMT
14 points
No, Barzuniac, people scrambling for jobs pre- and post-layoffs left those cities. I'm pretty sure of the 600,000 that left Detroit, most were by no means rich people.
Unidentifiedkiwi
:
Dec 30th, 2009 at 23:33 GMT
0 points
As expected, not a single city west of the Mississippi. I'd be interested to see this for the last 50 or even 100 years; the westward population shift would be even more pronounced.
burningriver
:
Dec 31st, 2009 at 04:41 GMT
5 points
AKA name a city in Ohio
AtomicIce
:
Dec 31st, 2009 at 14:35 GMT
-1 points
Sad that I haven't been that well travelled, but that I have been to almost every city on this list in one way or another.
megarockman
:
Jan 4th, 2010 at 17:04 GMT
7 points
HarryNJ: Norfolk I'm guessing is related to the shift of the American economic engine from manufacturing to tertiary industries (more white-collar work) and maybe its close ties to naval shipbuilding (specifically that there are many more yards now than before). Same with Birmingham: it was a relatively big industrial center in the South back then.
ericderkonig
:
Jan 5th, 2010 at 03:36 GMT
2 points
Virginia Beach, near Norfolk, has grown significantly since the 1970s, so perhaps everyone is just moving there.
BiloxiSean
:
Feb 24th, 2010 at 18:28 GMT
2 points
Virginia Beach has grown due to more people living there, and also the former county that VA Beach was in just calls itself the city of Virginia Beach.
cjmulrain
:
Feb 24th, 2010 at 18:40 GMT
7 points
Norfolk, like Baltimore and Philadelphia, was one of the major east coast port cities. With the decline of American manufacturing in the rust belt, American shipping has also taken a major hit. It's a testament to the evolution of both New York and Boston that they didn't make this list.
cjmulrain
:
Feb 24th, 2010 at 18:41 GMT
4 points
Also, have to say I'm surprised DC is on this list. DC has never been a manufacturing or a shipping city - really, it's never produced anything. Meanwhile, the Federal government has grown by leaps and bounds since 1970. Then again, I work in DC and live in Maryland - I bet if you included the whole Metropolitan area, there's no way DC would have made the list.
carbon_rod
:
Jul 17th, 2010 at 21:00 GMT
5 points
For some of these cities, the flight to the suburbs is probably to blame. That is, the area as a whole is probably the same, but with the people living in the suburbs and commuting in to the cities they used to live in.
gowhere
:
Oct 27th, 2010 at 15:45 GMT
5 points
@cjmulrain: You have the nub of it right there. With Washington, the issue is spread. The metro area has grown significantly - it is just DC itself which shrank. As examples, Gaithersburg and Olney were farm communities back then. This trend is starting to reverse itself because of Washington's nightmare commutes.
Roman
:
Oct 27th, 2010 at 16:17 GMT
-1 points
Birmingham is an aberration to the South trend. Crime maybe? horrible post Jim Crow experiences maybe?
megarockman
:
Nov 11th, 2010 at 04:42 GMT
5 points
Roman: Birmingham was a big industrial center, believe it or not.
adamnvillani
:
Jun 9th, 2011 at 07:43 GMT
2 points
Well, St. Louis is just west of the Mississippi, but besides that, yeah, everything is east of the Mississippi.
johnlk
:
Jan 31st, 2012 at 18:47 GMT
4 points
You should update with 2010 census figures. Detroit's even more screwed now.
Dralcoffin
:
Feb 1st, 2012 at 03:44 GMT
1 point
2010 numbers would also drop Chicago even farther from a growing Philadelphia, but for a similar population drop Chicago and Detroit are in such different conditions...
Maherdabum
:
Jun 29th, 2012 at 05:48 GMT
2 points
In 1980, nearly 70% of the US Population resided from the East Coast all the way to the Mississippi River, North of the Mason- Dixon Line! Today, that same region accounts for less than 40%. All but two of these cities fall into that region so it wasn't too difficult to guess most of these answers.
Game published: Oct 3rd, 2012 at 15:00 GMT
WyattsTorch
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 15:20 GMT
8 points
Note to self: don't buy real estate in Ohio.
munga
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 16:10 GMT
35 points
This is a little misleading. Metro populations have increased in most of these cities. People have moved out of the cities and into the suburbs.
rsplenda477
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 16:51 GMT
1 point
Almost ALL midwestern states. No manufacturing anymore.
steel03
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 16:58 GMT
8 points
^NOT Midwestern, Rust Belt. New York and Pennsylvania are not Midwestern, and Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, the Plains, and eastern Wisconsin and Illinois are all booming.
AtomicIce
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 17:10 GMT
3 points
I've lived in 2 of these (1 city proper and 1 metro area) and been to all but 5 and still couldn't get all of them, mostly because of the blurb on the home page. I thought ALL of them were in cold climates, so I didn't even think of places down south.
AtomicIce
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 17:13 GMT
5 points
How telling that there isn't a single state capital, yet the national one is. I think if all the DC area federal jobs were in DC proper instead of just in the AREA, it wouldn't be losing population either.
Tony_A
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 17:23 GMT
2 points
No wonder property in OH is cheap!
DTNelson
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 18:15 GMT
5 points
"Nothing but the Dead and Dying back in my little town."
Chocolate
:
Oct 3rd, 2012 at 18:17 GMT
8 points
I wonder if this quiz changed following the 2010 census since it was originally created in 2009. Was it 1970 - 2000? We know what a huge effect Katrina had on the New Orleans exodus, for example.
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