From Niagara This Week:
For the better part of the 1980s and in to the 1990s, Niagara Falls was in an economic downward spiral.
Residents were losing good-paying manufacturing jobs as large factories in the city’s industrial sector were shutting down. The unemployment rate was among the worst in the country, reaching a high of 11.7 per cent in 1996.
Average household incomes dropped to under $30,000 by the mid-1990s and the housing market was in decline. The city’s tourism industry stagnated.