Increased foreclosures will affect tax coffers...

Foreclosures have devastated whole neighborhoods in Cleveland and other cities, but the real impact on the finances of cities is still to come.

Treasurer's offices all over the country are bracing for the day when lenders stop paying the taxes on many properties in the worst hit neighborhoods. Many houses in Cleveland's central city neighborhoods have been so damaged by looting, fires and weather that they are almost total losses. The lenders will eventually walk away from them.

"The lenders will come to us and say, 'We just can't hold the properties any longer. We don't want to pay the demolition costs. Here's the property,' " said Jim Rokakis, Treasurer of Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, one of the cities hardest hit by foreclosures.