St. Louis is a ghost town

Some American cities, like Detroit and St. Louis, are now ghost towns.
I'm fascinated that we don't hear about this.
It must be because:
1: it happened gradually.
2: we can't do anything about it.
3: it's too big to face.

Read Susie Bright's story about her walk in downtown St. Louis in 2005 (the article covers other subjects first).
"I walked for an hour. I saw FIVE people. Five. It was the middle of Saturday. I passed hundreds and hundreds of empty burned-out, 18th and early-19th century buildings with nobody inside them. The handful of adults and children I encountered stared bug-eyed at me."

BTW, does anybody know what other cities are like this now?