If you want to know why both David Perdue and Jack Kingston see north Georgia as the key to their U.S. Senate races, just look at the drain that is south Georgia.

According to both Vox and Bloomberg, the Rust Belt doesn’t have anything on us. Based on 2012-13 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, Georgia has three of the top 10 shrinking cities in the United States. All are south of I-20:

No. 1: Valdosta (-2.12 percent; current population 56,481)

No. 4: Albany (- 1.42 percent, current population 76,185)

No. 7:  Macon (-1.31 percent, current population 89,981)

Two of the three Georgia cities are, proportionately, shedding more people than Detroit, which came in at No. 6. (Hat tip to PeachPundit.com on this.)

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