Read the original (2007) paper from Lorlene Hoyt and André Leroux
America’s 179 forgotten cities are old, small, and poor.
In 2007, Lorlene Hoyt and André Leroux prepared a paper based on conversations hosted at MIT DUSP about America’s “Forgotten Cities” which they defined as being old (having a population of 5,000 in 1880), small (between 15,000 and 150,000 residents) and poor (a median household income below $35,000. The original list found 150 such cities.
In October 2024, I updated the list by utilizing the same population criteria (1880, and 2022) and a median household income threshold of 17% or more below the national average which is an equivalent percentage to that used by Hoyt and Leroux. The updated list found 179 such cities.
The updated data was used by journalist Alec MacGillis in his New York Times/ProPublica opinion piece on the politics of small cities.