Look what a fellow american has written about your country.

Does he "hate" america?

Will you label him as a "hater", or more absurdly - will you say he is
somehow jealous (of what I can't possibly imagine) because he makes
these critical comments and observations?

Will it be somehow different if you hear this from a fellow citizen? Or
will you stick your head in the sand like you always do when you hear it
from me?

============================

America The Fallen: 24 Signs That Our Once Proud Cities Are Turning Into
Poverty-Stricken Hellholes

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...cken-hellholes

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,

What is happening to you America? Once upon a time, the United States
was a place where free enterprise thrived and the greatest cities that
the world had ever seen sprouted up from coast to coast. Good jobs were
plentiful and a manufacturing boom helped fuel the rise of the largest
and most vibrant middle class in the history of the planet. Cities such
as Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Baltimore
were all teeming with economic activity and the rest of the globe looked
on our economic miracle with a mixture of wonder and envy. But now look
at us. Our once proud cities are being transformed into
poverty-stricken hellholes.

Did you know that the city of Detroit once actually had the highest
per-capita income in the United States? Looking at Detroit today, it is
hard to imagine that it was once one of the most prosperous cities in
the world. In fact, as you will read about later in this article,
tourists now travel to Detroit from all over the globe just to see the
ruins of Detroit. Sadly, the exact same thing that is happening to
Detroit is happening to cities all over America. Detroit is just ahead
of the curve.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse that is eating away
at us like cancer, and things are going to get a lot worse than this.
So if you still live in a prosperous area of the country, don't laugh at
what is happening to others. What is happening to them will be coming
to your area soon enough.

The following are 24 signs that our once proud cities are turning into
poverty-stricken hellholes...

#1 According to the New York Times, there are now approximately 70,000
abandoned buildings in Detroit.

#2 At this point, approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles
is either vacant or derelict.

#3 Back during the housing bubble, an acre of land in downtown Phoenix,
Arizona sold for about $90 a square foot. Today, an acre in downtown
Phoenix sells for about $9 a square foot.

#4 The city of Chicago is so strapped for cash that it is planning to
close 54 public schools. It is being estimated that Chicago schools
will run a budget deficit of about a billion dollars in 2013.

#5 The city of Baltimore is already facing unfunded liabilities of more
than 3.2 billion dollars, but the city government continues to pile up
more debt as if it was going out of style.

#6 Today, the murder rate in East St. Louis is 17 times higher than the
national average.

#7 According to USA Today, the "share of jobs located in or near a
downtown declined in 91 of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas"
between 2000 and 2010.

#8 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the
manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

#9 There are more than 85,000 streetlights in Detroit, but thieves have
stripped so much copper wiring out of the lights that more than half of
them are not working.

#10 The unemployment rate in El Centro, California is 24.2 percent, and
the unemployment rate in Yuma, Arizona is an astounding 25.6 percent.

#11 It has been estimated that there are more than 1,000 homeless people
living in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city of Las
Vegas.

#12 Violent crime in the city of Oakland increased by 23 percent during
2012.

#13 If you can believe it, more than 11,000 homes, cars and businesses
were burglarized in Oakland during 2012. That breaks down to
approximately 33 burglaries a day.

#14 As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police
officers assigned to Chicago's Gang Enforcement Unit to handle the
estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.

#15 The number of murders in Chicago last year was roughly equivalent to
the number of murders in the entire country of Japan during 2012.

#16 The murder rate in Flint, Michigan is higher than the murder rate in
Baghdad.

#17 If New Orleans was considered to be a separate nation, it would have
the 2nd highest murder rate on the entire planet.

#18 According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence
Center, Mexican drug cartels were actively operating in 50 different
U.S. cities in 2006. By 2010, that number had skyrocketed to 1,286.

#19 Back in 2007, the number of New York City residents on food stamps
was about 1 million. It is now being projected that the number of New
York City residents on food stamps will pass the 2 million mark this
summer.

#20 The number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of
New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.

#21 As I noted yesterday, approximately one out of every three children
in the United States currently lives in a home without a father.

#22 In Miami, 45 percent of the children are living in poverty.

#23 In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of the children are living in
poverty.

#24 According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children
in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

As I mentioned at the top of this article, the decline of the city of
Detroit has become so famous that it has actually become a tourist
attraction. The following is a short excerpt from an article in the New
York Times...

But in Detroit, the tours go on, in an unofficial capacity. One
afternoon at the ruins of the 3.5-million-square-foot Packard Plant, I
ran into a family from Paris. The daughter said she read about the
building in Lonely Planet; her father had a camcorder hanging around his
neck. Another time, while conducting my own tour for a guest, a group of
German college students drove up. When queried as to the appeal of
Detroit, one of them gleefully exclaimed, “I came to see the end of the
world!”

For much more on the shocking decline of one of America's greatest
cities, please see my previous article entitled "Bankrupt, Decaying And
Nearly Dead: 24 Facts About The City Of Detroit That Will Shock You".

So are there any areas of the country that are still thriving?

Well, yes, there are a few. In particular, those areas that are sitting
on top of energy resources tend to be doing quite well for now.

One example is Texas. In recent years people have been absolutely
flocking to the state. There are lots of energy jobs, the cost of
living is low and there is no state income tax.

But overall, things are really tough out there. Over the past decade
America has lost millions of good jobs to offshoring, advancements in
technology and a declining economy.

Last year, the United States had a trade deficit with the rest of the
world of more than half a trillion dollars. Overall, the U.S. has run a
trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars
since 1975.

All of that money could have gone to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers.
In turn, taxes would have been paid on all of that income which could
have helped keep our cities great.

But instead, our politicians have stood idly by as we have lost tens of
thousands of businesses and millions of jobs. If you can believe it,
more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have closed down permanently
in the United States since 2001.

We have allowed our economic infrastructure to be absolutely gutted, and
so we should not be surprised that our once proud cities are turning
into poverty-stricken hellholes.

And this is just the beginning. The next wave of the economic collapse
is rapidly approaching, and when it strikes unemployment in this country
will eventually rise to a level that is more than double what it is now.

When that happens, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near our rotting,
decaying cities.