Los Angeles Among Forbes' 'Top 10 U.S Cities In Freefall'

Forbes has released its list of 'Top 10 U.S. Cities In Freefall', and California has the dubious distinction of appearing thrice. The greater Los Angeles, Riverside and Sacramento areas all made the list, only Florida had more cities represented. In compiling the list, Forbes used six metrics, including the percent the median home price has fallen since its individual peak, how many people were moving in and out of these metros, and percent change in unemployment.

Of California's woes, Forbes writes:

Riverside, Los Angeles and Sacramento are suffering because of the knocks they took after their inflated housing markets began to plummet. Unemployment in the City of Angels has nearly tripled in three years, to 12%. Riverside's unemployment has also ballooned, to 15%. Meanwhile Sacramento saw a 75% drop in new building permits. These are troubling signs for Cali metros, but not surprising. The end of the state's home-price climb triggered more than just a housing slump.

"In California, so many jobs were concentrated in construction," says Michael Fratantoni, vice president of research at the Mortgage Bankers Association, the professional association for real estate financiers. "Jobs building single family homes wound up not being sustainable, and there were a lot of job losses."

The Forbes report comes on the heels of California's most recent jobless report, which put the state's unemployment rate at a record 12.6% for March. However, in what might be an encouraging sign for the region, KPCC reports today that foreclosures in LA County are down 43.5% for the first quarter of 2010 compared to last year.

Scroll through to see all of the cities that made the list.

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10. Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA

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Comments

[TobyPLD]

02:22 PM on 05/03/2010

Cause it's Mexico City #2

[cameradrift]

12:53 PM on 05/03/2010

Where are all the jobs that the tax cuts for the wealthy were suppost to provide. Gee, let me guess. Ah, Swiss Bank.

[gimmeabreak444]

10:51 PM on 04/30/2010

all that topped with the disgusting pollution in the air on the hottest days (and that's about 300 out of the year) - makes me want to move to L.A.!

[OneConservative]

10:44 PM on 04/29/2010

Congratulations Libs. So this is what open borders and high taxes and entrenched unions and out of control spending and super charged regulation and an anti business attitude can do for everyone.

You Libs must be proud.

BTW, when do you plan to balance the budget?

[talkpeople]

03:57 PM on 04/30/2010

you mean the budget that cheney said didn't matter? I guess dems will get it done when the rep ucks stop their childish game playing and start voting for the public and not their check books. Why on earth would anyone follow and be part of the fleecing of america the repugs and their bed buddies corporate interest have done to this country.

[mediamarv]

02:19 AM on 04/29/2010

For those who don't live in LA, that photo with the mountains in the background can only be achieved with a very, very long lens, on a tri-pod on a clear day, usually following a rain storm, and has no relation to reality.

Just sayin'.

[wirewalker]

09:11 AM on 05/03/2010

I've lived in LA my entire life and I've seen the mountains like that maybe only half a dozen times. Half the time I can't even see downtown.

[LeftLeaner]

04:11 PM on 04/27/2010

I know it's not a popular thing to say, but it's probably due to so many illegals, not paying into the system, but taking advantage of the free services.

[mediamarv]

02:20 AM on 04/29/2010

Name one illegal that you know. One.

We're waiting.

[talkpeople]

03:58 PM on 04/30/2010

Have you been to the south lately? Shanty shacks with white people living in them. Welfare, welfare welfare oh yeah don't forget bubba needs his guns too.

[JScott]

03:07 AM on 04/23/2010

Oh please blaming repubs dems illegals, taxes etc. is too simplistic, it goes much deeper than that
and beyond the box were you put comments. But all those who whine and bitch about living in Ca. are free to leave, there can stand to be fewer people in Calif. the ones that are tough will stay. That's just fine with me.

[LeftLeaner]

04:30 PM on 04/27/2010

People who are taxpayers, being squeezed, are leaving, with less in the state budget each day.

[hibeam]

11:33 AM on 04/22/2010

I think a better headline would be “Democrats Devastate US Cities” Boneheads buying votes destroys America would work too.

[RobinSeattle]

07:31 PM on 04/22/2010

California, Florida and Nevada all have Republican governors, each of whom was a cheerleader for the housing bubble that brought on our current housing troubles. The Republicans in congress were also warned about the bubble before the Democrats retook that institution and did absolutely nothing about it.

Also, the reasons those areas are in free fall are due to collapses in the real estate markets thanks fo malpractice by developers, banks and the mortgage lending industry, who overbuilt communities and then allowed people not qualified to buy home do so. Moreover, the banks then allowed homeowners to HELOC themselves up to their eyeballs. And those bankers, mortgage lenders and developers ain't Democrats.

That's not to say that Democrats don't have some culpability in this, but it ain't just them who made this stuff possible.

[mediamarv]

02:21 AM on 04/29/2010

Don't confuse the guy with facts. Facts are not pertinent in the Palin universe.

[antaeus]

01:54 PM on 04/24/2010

And the decades of bloated defense budget spending that President Eisenhower warned us about don't amount to vote buying?

[KellyRyan]

11:48 PM on 04/21/2010

Las Vegas is in desperate condition, with a high crime rate they will never reveal. It's not good for tourism. The building boom of the nineties began to crash this past decade, and continues to slide.

As for California, it's painful to see the decline.

[napasonoma]

05:12 PM on 04/22/2010

Las Vegas began its downfall when the threw the mob out. It was a fun gambling mecca, even if you didn't gamble -- the entertainment was tops. Now it is a tacky, tacky. tacky Disneyland. Anyone who has ever been to Frank's Las Vegas would never recognize this cheesy amusement park.

[KellyRyan]

07:32 PM on 04/22/2010

We would refer to it as, "Disneyland of the Desert," when I lived there. I met a woman who had lived in Vegas from the early 60's and she said LV was safest with the mob in control. No one dared step out of line.

Tops as one of the worst places to live in the US.

[RobinSeattle]

07:33 PM on 04/22/2010

I agree. Nothing says fun like "Mafia." Regular Spuds McKenzies they are.

[talkpeople]

03:53 PM on 04/30/2010

Vegas should never have gotten so big in the first place. All those golf course and homes with green lawns. There is NO water. The colorado river once flowed all the way to mexico now barely makes it out of the four corners. The next big battle after this finacial crisis will be over water.

[belyeu]

09:30 PM on 04/21/2010

It used to be nearly impossible to get a contractor to do a small job on your home because they had so much work they only took the bigger jobs and the work was often shoddy. I had nothing but problems with every contractor I ever hired. Now those greedy contractors are out of work.

My personal opinion is that Calif turned into a haven for illegal aliens and the result is a run down broke Calif.

BTW, Calif is overrated.

[mediamarv]

02:25 AM on 04/29/2010

Overrated by whom??
Certainly not by those of us who live here. But, by all means, stay away.
Hate may be a family value where you live, but around here, we enjoy life cause, let's face it, the worst day in CA is far better than better than most places you can think of.

[talkpeople]

04:01 PM on 04/30/2010

CA rocks!

[che guevara]

07:51 PM on 04/21/2010

california was once a great place to live but that was a very long time ago... just too many people all wanting to live in the same place is the root of the problem. I have not lived there since the late 1980's & the people that I have kept in touch with from school days are all unemployed due to the fact that jobs have either been eliminated or they have been replaced with undocumented workers willing to work for less wages & no benefits. last time I was there I visited a friend who was living in an absolute s***hole of a place paying 1000 dollars a month & he had not had a cost of living raise in 20 years..& now he's out of work & living on the streets... oh well , some people will not like what I have to say but it is the greed of the white business owners & property owners combined with the flood of illegals that destroyed california over the last 25 years

[RobinSeattle]

07:35 PM on 04/22/2010

All those Republican small business owners hiring illegals really did a job on wages. This is why you will never see real immigration reform from the GOP. They only talk about it to hustle the teabaggers.

[mediamarv]

02:33 AM on 04/29/2010

"or they have been replaced with undocumented workers willing to work for less wages & no benefits."
Give us one name, the type of job he/she lost, and the name of the undocumented worker who was able to take the job..... having a hard time coming up with the answer?

I'm not surprised. That's what happens when one writes fiction.

[belyeu]

04:14 PM on 04/29/2010

Calif is over run with illegal aliens that are costing the tax payer 10.8 billion per year in health care, education, incarceration, welfare, and other social services.

Dude, go to Santa Ana, Huntington Park, La Puente, Commerce, Hawaiian Gardens, East Los Angeles, Whittier, La Habra, Stanton, Westminster, Garden Grove and hundreds of other cities and you will think you are in a 3rd world country

[belyeu]

04:17 PM on 04/29/2010

"Give us one name, the type of job he/she lost,"

Construction

"and the name of the undocumented"

Jose.

[hibeam]

12:28 PM on 04/21/2010

Cutting taxes has worked like a charm every time we have tried it but remember it is a REPUBLICAN fix. Let’s try the DEMOCRATIC fix and just keep on raising taxes the way good ole Jimmy Carter was doing before Reagan came along and saved the day.

[Jon Denzler]

12:35 PM on 04/21/2010

3 points
1. trickle-down economics never worked...ever
2. didnt Obama just implement the biggest tax cut in recent history?
3. The last President we had a surplus under was Clinton...who raised taxes on the upper-class

[den1953]

12:40 PM on 04/21/2010

Let me be the first to say i agree and you are fanned!

[Libertyfan]

12:47 PM on 04/21/2010

Trickle down does work...every time. It's why Reagan was so successful. The middle class and even the poor's standard of living soared.

[ObamAtomic]

03:06 PM on 04/21/2010

Scotty need to Beam You Up !

[Peter007]

12:17 PM on 04/21/2010

Where is Detroit ?

I guess it must be nicer than Vegas now?

[Jon Denzler]

12:34 PM on 04/21/2010

its like Cleveland theres no room to "free fall". im from cleveland and see it everyday

[hibeam]

12:13 PM on 04/21/2010

Fear not people. Obama is having printing presses air dropped into these struggling cities. Problem solved. And you folks thought a community organizer could not lead us out of this mess.

[RobinSeattle]

07:42 PM on 04/22/2010

So how many times did the GOP Congress vote to raise debt limits?

"Any objective analysis of our country's fiscal history would have to conclude this administration and this rubberstamping Republican Congress are the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of our country. In fact, no other president or Congress even comes close,"declared Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) as the Senate voted 52 to 48 on Thursday to raise the federal debt ceiling by another $781 billion to now be $8.97 trillion. America's proverbial credit-card limit was increased to prevent "a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes." "
http://usliberals.about.com/b/2006/03/17/republicans-raise-us-debt-ceiling-to-9-trillion-caused-by-iraq-war-and-tax-breaks-for-the-rich.htm

[hibeam]

12:09 PM on 04/21/2010

Recovery? Most metro areas still losing jobs
Only 16 of 384 areas show employment growth in latest Adversity Index
Welcome to Obamaland ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Obamaland.

[Caliphane]

12:11 PM on 04/21/2010

Cause Republicans have offered anything but "across the board tax cuts?" Get with it.