Most of the decaying small cities have a story about how the local whatever union negotiated the last decent employer out of town 20-30 years ago.

With the manufacturing went all the money and new blood, and now the town (it's bled off too many people to be a city anymore) is populated by old people whose houses are worth the same amount they paid for them forty years ago and absolute burnouts on the dole and on drugs, and the only remaining jobs to be had are service economy bullshit that doesn't pay enough to scrape together the cash to get out of town.