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There is a danger in building a city on just one industry. Take Detroit, Michigan for example. It was commonly known pre-recession as an automobile manufacturing city. Thousands of local workers were employed at the various plants there and enjoyed years of loyal service to the companies. Then the recession happened. There was a huge automobile market crash that took casualties of the largest companies in Detroit. No longer were they impervious to the changes of the market, in fact they were the ones that suffered the worst. Because Detroit relied mainly on that one industry, it suffered a huge blow by the change in the market. Workers were put into the unemployment lines by the thousands. Foreclosure numbers crept up. Overal financial distress was eminent in the city. The worst news was that due to the automobile plants closing, those thousands of jobs most likely would never return.
Las Vegas and Atlantic City suffered the same fates. The cities built their industries on land-based casino gambling. When the recession happened, people were at a loss for finding viable ways of creating discretionary funds. They were stretched to pay for necessities but extras– like gambling– were all but eliminated altogether. This caused cities that relied on the industry to suffer greatly. Las Vegas recently reported that within its city borders almost 60% of residents are either in foreclosure, or in some type of default on their home mortgage loans. This is terrible news for the market and no one knows how long it will take before things change back to normal. Now that the recession is over, experts are hoping people will be building up their discretionary funds once again. If they do, they can start vacationing again and gambling at land-based casinos. It will take some time, but no one knows how long it will take or if people will ever return to “normal” activities regarding gambling. Casinos are waiting with baited breath for the future, hoping the deep discounts they are introducing to the market will be enough to spur people into coming back to their businesses for gambling fun.