What cities have shrunk most from the peak?
 

What cities have declined +25% in population from a peak of ~50,000 or more.

Only one in Canada is Cape Breton Regional Municipality, down 28.3%.

Among US cities, Detroit and St. Louis come immediately to mind, both having less than 40% of their 1950 peak population in their city limits.

also have to look at the context, too. detroit and st. louis were both the number 4 american city which is no small thing to fall from, as silly as it may sound.

Pittsburgh had 676k in 1950, now it has 304k...

Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo would be the obvious examples.

But, in the real world, it's more accurate to say these cities are all stagnant rather than declining. The population is the same, it just shifted to outside city limits.

Also, it's worth mentioning that many booming metros had similar population losses in the core, they just had larger city limits to mask the losses.

I'd agree with you in that all cities that you mentioned except Detroit are more so stagnating than declining. Another factor to take into account is declining fertility rates and smaller household sizes.

Detroit on the other hand I would say is declining if the mass exodus and abandoned neighborhoods are evidence of that. On top of that, its metro isn't really growing, its been more or less stagnant for many years. Those other cities have all lost 50-60% of their population, whereas Detroit will probably be 1/3 of its 1950 size by the time of the 2020 census.
Despite the substantial population losses in those other cities, they seem to lack any completely abandoned neighborhoods, is there any reason for that?

You seem to know nothing, Detroit is one of the only metro regions actually gaining population in the rustbelt. Urban blight doesn't expose anything unknown, all those cities have that as well, how is this unique evidence? Cleveland, Buffalo, and Chicago have substantial blight, what are you even saying? Blight is mostly evidence of suburban sprawl not metro population loss. The Detroit region has a higher population than it did in 1960 and mostly remained stable since the 70's. City proper numbers get chopped in weird ways, Hemmtrmack and Highland Park are technically their own cities so they don't get counted, there's also Windsor to consider (but that's a totally different can of warms) so the population is much larger than raw census numbers suggest. You keep going back and forth between city proper and metro numbers, your post doesn't even make a slick of sense.

Detroit metro has gained very little population in over 40 years and the city has perhaps the most proportion of its cityscape plagued by abandonment than any other not ravaged by war in modern times.

But there are good things happening downtown, and these are real--not just a bunch of hype. But it will take quite a long time

City limits do complicate one's definition of what a city actually is, there always seems to be a debate as to whether the legal but rather arbitrarily defined city proper, urban area or metro area constitutes a "city". Measuring the urban and metro population of Detroit, then no, it is not a declining region, but those neighborhoods like the area by the airport off of Van Dyke are certainly not an indication of a stable metro area. Many cities have their fair share of blight, even booming cities, but Detroit seems to have the most proportionally, as the urban politician said.
That being said, the legally defined city does seem to be turning around, albeit slowly, and the increasingly thriving Downtown and Midtown areas are evidence of this.

His post made more sense than yours. There's nothing wrong with being a Detroit booster. But if you start making posts like this you're credibility suffers.
If I had a vested interested in promoting Detroit I would focus on all of the construction going on Downtown and Midtown rather than pretending the the outer neighborhoods and population stagnation were not problems.

i'm going to do my civic duty and continuously make everything about st. louis ;):

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HAHAHAHA there's no boosting, mostly just correcting moronity that consistently rears it's head on this site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Detroit Scroll down a little and you'll see the evidence of the numbers I was talking about.

Detroit is a much larger region than you probably realize and things do exists outside of midtown (shocking I know), the city didn't miraculously lose it's extraordinary wealth contrary to popular belief, it simply shifted to the suburbs, like nearly all American cities; make sense now? Crawford's whole point is that these cities technically didn't decline since economies and population are all generally the same just sprawled out in a metro region. Which is also true for Detroit and St. Louis, does inner city suburban neighborhood decline suck? hell yes! This country is a total joke for allowing such incompetent urban planning that was especially fueled by racism. However, Detroit is not at all the special case it's paraded as, if you're going to argue other rustbelt cities didn't decline based on metro population you'd have to say the same for Detroit.

My credibility remains immaculate. :D

i really liked the idea of austin once and loved going to sxsw but in practice austin fucking blows ass so fucking bad now, especially as some kind of late relief valve for california.

i'd rather live in the wilderness.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with what Crawford originally said about stagnant cities, so again, why are you talking about this? So Detroit has the most inner-city detached homes turned blight by surface area? Wow, incredible, and?

i love detroit and its people, you're going the wrong way about it. detroit is strong enough to speak for itself, let it talk through you.

This is another important point that is very true for many cities. My city amalgamated with its suburbs decades ago which masks its losses. If one looks at the population history of my city it looks to be a fairly stable city, not once having declined in between decades. However, had it not amalgamated with its suburbs, its declined 25%.

Yeah I remember reading somewhere that Manhattans population is actually smaller than it was 100 years ago.

If you think these other cities don't have significanty blighted neighbourhoods then you are exposing that you have no idea what you are talking about!
And the city of Detroit's decline is old news, it has slowed down considerably, and is actually gaining population in some areas. There are massive investments going into the city currently.

Cities like Merv or Mohenjo-daro have declined 100% percent from their peaks, when they were among the largest cities in the world. This is not rare.

As far as I know, no city in history has seen a bigger decline faster than Detroit, which in about six decades lost more than half of its population.

Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Gary, Niagara Falls, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Youngstown. All have lost 50% of their population, with Detroit still losing population fastest.
On my part, I will say that my use of population as the sole indicator for a city's health is unfair, there are many factors to consider when looking at a city's health.
Detroit is turning a corner, and I'm excited for what that city could look like a few decades from now. I'm as hopeful for that city as anyone, but north 42 and the north one, telling people they have no idea what they are talking about won't help your cause or the city's. I'm all for having a discussion because hearing opinions should they be delivered respectfully is a healthy way to learn and also develop your own.
Thank you for contributing to the thread! Most people's think that Detroit is an example of what a city could look like after an apocalypse, its great that there are people out there who see things differently and more optimistically!