Manufacturing industry has been in decline for about 4 decades, you are right about that. I think what doomed people more than those jobs going away, were their attitudes about education and entrepreneurship. My father worked in a factory and the point wasn't for him to break his back for his son to be working right alongside him, doing the exact same thing. That factory job was a means to an end, not the end itself.

About the neighborhoods falling apart? I always say that there is a difference between not having a lot of money and being poor. Once a person loses his/her dignity, they are poor.You can walk through the worst neighborhoods in America and find many people who carry themselves with pride. They respect themselves and their home/environment. The problem is that the losers with no self respect ruin the entire area for the regular people.