0Anderson, Indiana, is one of the few places that has had two major
forms of employment move out of the area; in 1912, their sources
of natural gas were depleted causing the factories that employed
most of the town to close their doors and move onto other areas of
the United States to continue their business. Once General Motors
moved in, things started looking up for the city. However, like many
other automobile industry boomtowns in the Rust Belt, once the
industry was outsourced to other countries and the plants closed,
the population fled for greener pastures. The once vibrant city was
left to decay. Schools that once vibrated with the laughter of kids
were left without students; clubs once filled with laughter and joy
were forgotten in the face of overwhelming poverty; hotels that
housed those traveling through were shuttered and turned into
cheap housing before eventually being closed by the city; and
shopping malls that once had thousands of customers were largely
forgotten as the anchor stores closed for lack of profits. A place that
once housed over 70,000 citizens has lost over 20% of the
population since the deindustrialization of the 1970s and 1980s