[McBain II]

Originally Posted by MountainMen

There's nothing I like about it, but if you travel through the steel industry areas of Ohio & Pennsylvania, you see how fast thriving cities can become ghost towns. What if Conagra and Union Pacific decide to relocate somewhere with lower taxes? Then you factor in demographic trends, baby boomer retirees going to Florida, and educated young people heading to California, and there's only one conclusion I come to - Omaha is a ghost town in 40 years.

Can you give me one example of a city Omaha's size becoming a "ghost town"?

[MountainMen]

Originally Posted by Bosco55David

Can you give me one example of a city Omaha's size becoming a "ghost town"?

Sure, Gunkanjima Japan, also known as Hashima. Gunkanjima had a density of 216,000 people per square mile, compared to Omaha's 3,400 per square mile.

Gunkanjima being so close to Nagasaki brings up yet another risk I didn't even think about - nuclear fallout. Omaha sits on two dangerously fragile nuclear plants. Any kind of attack, flooding, or explosion at the sites would render the entire city of Omaha barren.

[McBain II]

Originally Posted by MountainMen

Sure, Gunkanjima Japan, also known as Hashima. Gunkanjima had a density of 216,000 people per square mile, compared to Omaha's 3,400 per square mile.

Gunkanjima being so close to Nagasaki brings up yet another risk I didn't even think about - nuclear fallout. Omaha sits on two dangerously fragile nuclear plants. Any kind of attack, flooding, or explosion at the sites would render the entire city of Omaha barren.

I was thinking something more along the lines of this continent. Hashima Island is not even a remotely comparable example. That was an island that had a housing complex(s) built there for workers. When the work went away, so did the people. You can read about it here.

Hashima Island - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fort Calhoun and Cooper are about 20 and 80 miles, respectively, outside of the Omaha city limits. Considering that the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone only has a 19 mile radius, and the near absolute safety of American nuclear power, I'm not too worried about that.

[Raphael07]

You also forgot to mention only 5000 people lived on Hashima. Way to try to skew statistics.

[harshbarj]

Originally Posted by Raphael07

You also forgot to mention only 5000 people lived on Hashima. Way to try to skew statistics.

That's what MountainMen excels at. The moment you actually investigate his posts you see they are mostly BS. Hence the reason I no longer even read them.

Could Omaha become a ghost town, sure. But that's not going to happen while the city is still growing the way it is. Even Detroit, a city that has shown HUGE population declines, is not a ghost town. Detroit has lost over 1.1 million people since the 1950's.

[MountainMen]

Have you been to Detroit? Most of it IS a ghost town.

[McBain II]

Originally Posted by MountainMen

Have you been to Detroit? Most of it IS a ghost town.

Detroit is STILL 18th in the nation, with just a tick over 700k for population.

Me thinks you might want to reconsider what "ghost town" means.

[MountainMen]

I did say most, not all, of Detroit. However, I just saw this article that says the rate of Detroit's population decline has been 1 person leaving every 22 minutes for the past 10 years.

Detroit's Population Decline: 1 Person Departed Every 22 Minutes | PBS NewsHour

[McBain II]

No matter how you try to spin, you just called a city of 700k a "ghost town". There is no way around that one, my friend.

[MountainMen]

No, I did not call the entire city a ghost town. Please read what I write.