Every country across the World have pockets of towns, and sometimes whole cities which have started prosperous and promising- yet many have slipped into virtual unemployment and poverty, with crime rates soaring or criminal gangs owning and controlling those regions and streets resembling something out of the shock horror movie ‘Hobo With A Shotgun’. (worth seeing if you have a wrought-iron gut)... This article is not dark horror like the fore-mentioned movie, but a look at the World today in many areas of the World.

In order to map out the successful areas and the number of towns and cities which failed to succeed, you would have to examine and list the governance quality of towns and cities around the World, charting how long it took before those areas began their decline, the impact of economic decline, unemployment and the rising crime rates. For example which Governments were in control of the declining areas during the success or decline of those areas, the Governmental budgets for each town or city which declined, and investment and economic output for those areas, using official and reported records.

The success and wealth of most of the major cities is from the massive investment that large cities get, and the quality of life that surrounding suburbs have is a World away to developing countries. The sheer amount of smaller cities and towns which have never risen to become wealthy and prosperous, but which have declined in trade and prosperity is the result of poor governance and policing. There would be hundreds of towns and cities started off in a prime position for investment and growth, but were lost to corruption and poor governance.

These are some of the key factors to the ruination of towns and cities :

Government budgets - how much money was allocated in total from the foundation of towns and cities from the first year of political governance to current day?
Investment received- did industries/factories or corporations invest in those areas ?
Economic output - how much GDP did these areas provide?
Number of homes- how many new houses were built until the decline of those areas?
Unemployment - what is the current unemployment rate of those areas?
Crime rates/types of crimes or problems- when did crime rates rise to unacceptable levels?
Political leadership details - which political party was in power from the foundation of those regions to current day, and what did the governance of those towns achieve and fail to do during those terms of governance?

The article below outlines the problem of corruption and tax evasion in developing countries which states that nearly one trillion dollars is lost annually in those nations, which greatly slows any progress of transforming cities and towns across the developing World.

'Developing World Loses Trillion Dollars Annually Due To Corruption And Tax Evasion' :-

(http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/84-84/27519-developing-world-loses-a-trillion-dollars-annually-due-to-corruption-and-tax-evasion)

None of the details about failed cities and towns would be much of a surprise- poor governance, lack of funds for police forces, lack of investment, rising unemployment and rising crime rates. Areas of a country which have seen conflict or war are another story- although some areas are slipping fast into civil war and intense gang warfare and are falling away from any investment. Mexico would currently fit that picture- a country blighted by an intense drug/guns and cartel gang war.

The ‘Occupy’ protests are people are asking just who is to blame for the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer- the stark imbalance of wealth and opportunities is the cause, and governance allowed financial fat-cats to take control of political arenas, with the banks being given the freedom to suck up everybody’s pensions and savings to use as loans.

Perhaps no big city is really safe from gradual decline of opportunity - a country gets to the peak of their development and becomes saturated with wealth, which seems to benefit only the immediate surrounding suburbs for a decade or two, but inevitably leads to greedy investors looking for a way to cash in on the peak success of a city. So why are there pockets of gang-controlled suburbs on the outskirts of cities and no investment in remote areas of successful developed nations? Rather than tap into other regions of a developed country, investors quickly cash in on the quick rise of big cities, and move on to other parts of the World to do the same. Locusts operate in a similar way....they find the ripe crops, strip them bare and move on to the next field. Governments mostly ignore the remote areas of a country, bu thanks to the internet, people have the ability to raise their concerns on a scale that was not expected by Governments who merely expected remote areas of their countries to fall apart, unnoticed by the rest of the nation.

Occupy protests are an important and permanent movement have emerged to become the voice of those struggling to get by, those who lost jobs, homes and a family life, and represents many people in remote and undeveloped locations. With easy access to hundreds of local newspapers via tablet or mobile news apps you can gauge the feeling of the people who you never knew existed and who feel forgotten or not represented adequately. Perhaps an extensive study of charting the success and failures of towns and cities across the whole World should be undertaken and put in one website so that we can see photos and evidence of when those towns and cities were new and looked promising, and then we can also find out just what happened to those towns- and which political parties or corporations gave up on those towns and cities? Take the motor-manufacturing capital of Detroit, Michigan- a good example of a a big city, and then study the smaller towns surrounding Detroit, examining Detroit’s library records for photos and news articles when the city and suburbs were new and prosperous, and get a sense of the scale of loss to families and lives, hopes and dreams. Many people might have had the opportunity to move on from that decline, but many are left to show the scars- what was left behind for them to live with.

Perhaps by piecing these facts together we can build a better picture of which political party was mostly to blame when Detroit fell apart at the seams. Cities and towns across the World could do the same- and then the Occupy movement would have a better idea where to place their protests, because the gradual decline of towns and cities occur when key decisions are made, and key decisions changed investment in those cities and towns which fell apart. Somehow, from the details and information on the web and libraries is the way to map out the decline of our cities and towns, so that we can learn from, and to make sure we don’t let the same happen to yet more cities and towns- because we cannot place the responsibility on big corporations and government to do the job of preventing towns or cities from the brink of collapse.

Generally if areas are headed towards becoming ghost towns, it is because investment was not there- or dried up -or investors cashed in on a region and then moved on. Why let whole cities and towns fall apart when a minimal cost can fix up some small towns to restore normality such as good policing, reasonable investment or industry and a more normal suburban life? By visiting websites such as one in the UK which maps out police attendance street-by-street, you can somehow gauge if an area is more normal or a hot-spot of crime. Unemployment rates of towns across the UK can also be found on the internet, and these facts point to the regions where government have to make improvements.

The country Zimbabwe is a good example of where a more prosperous life was possible, but sanctions hit the nation very hard, forcing the Zimbabwean government to scramble for resources to survive. We can hardly understand how the people living there felt when the plug was pulled on Zimbabwe, and the cleaner-than-squeaky views and expectations of Western politicians can be too critical on a developing nation like Zimbabwe. Sanctions on any nation might seem to be necessary by World leaders, and protests rarely happen when they are imposed on a nation- regardless of the impact we see on those nations years later. Crime-rates have risen in suburbs of some towns of developed nations because governments have effectively ‘sanctioned’ the budgets of those regions and reduced budgets of their police forces, which has given more freedom for crime to rise and gangs to take control. Sometimes the World leaders are just too macabre and cutthroat in their judgement, and rarely do things normalise or improve after sanctions or budget cuts take effect.

Governments are often left on the back foot when big corporations scale-back their investment in cities, and are unable to keep up with demands of the nation. Many small towns fall into the hands of gangs or cartels, and can rarely be reclaimed or rebuilt again. The collapse of World markets in the late 2000‘s was a test of resilience, and the Occupy movement led to rise of Anonymous groups, Wikileaks and independent media outlets who manage to get their hands on any piece of information to expose the political/financial greed and corruption that led to the chaos, which looks to be repeated in coming years if the attitudes which cause the imbalance of mega-profiteering, extreme wealth and poor governing do not change.
From the perspective of a rich corporation, business has never been so profitable- the corporations on the Dow Jones have increased their value to an all-time high of nearly twenty percent- but people should beware that banks in America are still playing the money shuffle game, the derivative loan game with American savings and pensions, as stated in this article:

‘Where's the Outrage? Congress Changes Savings Accounts and Retirement Funds, and America Sleeps’ :-

(http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/27547-wheres-the-outrage-congress-changes-savings-accounts-and-retirement-funds-and-america-sleeps)

Let’s focus on the problems that big finance and big corporations have unleashed, because with derivative debt deals only the ‘little’ people lose out the most, and the smaller towns and people struggling to get by also stand to lose the most. Even in the most modern and prosperous cities, nobody is immune to the political shenanigans and corporate calamity which lurks around the corner. Corporations never stop maximising profits and minimising their costs...they seek to better their previous gains and use any stepping stone possible to achieve that goal. And, as usual- that means the ‘little people’.

The pursuit for fairness, development and prosperity of towns and cities and a quality of life is the crux of what the Occupy movement stands for, because so many people have already lost so much, and do not want to lose a penny more.