Time, natural disasters, corruption — there are many reasons residents would leave a city. But what would it take to abandon a town completely? A recent online post asks its members for suggestions on why this would occur. Here are some insights and ideas from the Internet’s creative thinkers.
1. The Resource Curse
“Maybe they exploited some resource that kept the city afloat, and when it ran out, the city died as a result,” our first commenter proposes. This scenario would likely involve central powers’ misconduct, corruption, or ineptitude — a bad mayor or governor would endanger their city’s financial stability.
2. Drought
Several regions in the U.S. are blighted by severe drought, including Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Some parts of these states have seen very little rain in years, forcing families to move out. “Loss of water source,” adds a contributor. In the past, water was extremely valuable, and drained water sources often left cities abandoned.
3. Famine
“I’d add a loss of food supply,” states the next person. “Cities typically import most of their food. If something cuts off that supply, people will leave and go where there is food available.” This problem is unlikely to affect America anytime soon. However, who knows what the future may bring?
4. Loss of Purpose
The expansionism of late 19th and early 20th-century America meant that towns would disappear just as quickly as they appeared sometimes. “Happened all the time in the old West,” asserts the next commenter. “Think of old ghost towns right on the railroad next to dried-up gold and silver mines.”
5. A Hostile Invasion
“After the Romans left Britain and the Anglo-Saxons started invading,” explains a history fan, “the left-behind Romanized Britons abandoned many of their cities and fled west to get away from the invaders.” Fleeing from your town as war clouds descended was a go-to for generations of poor citizens worldwide. These days, most working people’s biggest threat is rising interest rates and unpayable mortgages driving them away.
6. Environmental Degradation
“You could draw from real-life ghost towns and settlements that were abandoned. Maybe it was radiation or some other harmful environmental factor,” posits another observer. Chernobyl is the most infamous example of a disaster-driven ghost town. However, East Palestine, Ohio, faces an uncertain future due to the recent vinyl chloride train catastrophe. Ironically, the East Palestine town motto is “East Palestine, OH: The Place You Want to Be.”
7. Natural Disasters
It might be passé to use well-known natural disasters in a ghost-town origin story, but there are great examples of mysterious natural phenomena. A thread tells the story of a giant carbon monoxide cloud emerging from a lake near a settlement. “The cloud stayed very low to the ground, rolled downhill, and passed through a small town,” reveals the poster. “It quietly killed everyone while they slept.”
8. Plague
Having just seen HBO’s The Last of Us, I am convinced our days are numbered. All jokes aside, plague still threatens all cities; we all know they can hit anytime! “If a disease kills enough people in an area and persists for long enough,” argues a dystopian forecaster, “many survivors will move away, and nearby communities will begin to avoid the area as a matter of course.”
9. Cult Takeovers
Maybe the city was created by a cult led by a charismatic preacher,” is the next interesting idea. “When the preacher was exposed as a fraud, people slowly abandoned the city.” This scenario would need to be a self-made community in the middle of nowhere — M. Night Shayalaman’s The Village comes to mind here.
10. Economic Reasons
Having visited the New Mexican town of Española many times when my wife worked in a school there, I can see how a town’s economy can ruin its culture. The economically challenged Rio Grande community now resembles a sad shell of its thriving former self. Mechanized farming in the ’70s drove most workers away, leaving behind a town of less than 10,000 residents — and dozens of gangs.
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