I am citing them as places that are not "failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades." as OP claimed. Chicago doesn't fall into that category either, but that is a discussion for another day. Bringing up cost-of-living or homelessness is simply moving the goalposts from the original claim.

The focus of my post was that it seems clear that economics is what forced those cities to crash. Look at Rust Belt cities (Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo, Gary) and you will find significant population decline and high crime rates. Trying to make it a political discussion brings in personal bias.