Why are you still here? James Meek reports from Grimsby
lrb.co.uk
lrb.co.uk
Note that the question in the title seems to be aimed at why fishermen and miners are still around, not why people are still in Grimsby ;-) Grimsby is an interesting and rather complex town, in my experience, but broadly suffers the same issues as any number of other British cities that are getting little investment (unlike Lincoln 25 miles to the south-west) and are struggling to modernise.
One major issue with towns like Grimsby is constant brain drain. Young people keep moving out, old downsizers keep moving in. I've been hiring in the area and while I've found some gold here, it's striking how many young people abandon these areas and end up staying where they went to uni or flee to London if they want to "make something of themselves". The political and institutional London-oriented "design" of the United Kingdom is actively harming towns like Grimsby in a way that doesn't seem to occur in the US (at least, the intentional part).
As an aside, it seems like Grimsby may get some international recognition soon as the guy who made Borat is basing his next movie on the town - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsby_%28film%29
It does, it's just that the size of the US makes it slightly less apparent. It's not that everyone is moving to one city, but everyone is moving to San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, LA, and so on. It's practically a right of passage to go try life in "the big city", then decide if you want to come home.