Code enforcement was difficult because the city's planning department, which employed 28 people in the 1970s, had dwindled to 3, including the secretary.
The number has dwindled to 14, including three Japanese, four Koreans, a Chinese from abroad and two stateless Americans.
The number of licensed commercial Hudson fishermen, which peaked at about 1,000 in the early 1900s, has dwindled to about 30, including just four who pursue shad seriously, said John Mylod, a former executive director of Clearwater, a Poughkeepsie-based environmental group.
Months later, returning with two companions, I was disappointed to find that the relish bowls had dwindled to a handful, including sweet and sour cucumber, kimchee and tiny dried fish, but not the sticky beans that I had enjoyed formerly and other exotic but addictive treats.
Lately, the crowds have dwindled to a hard core, including picketers who have created a "corridor of shame" outside the headquarters of Georgia's public broadcaster, accusing journalists of pro-government bias.
Its Ashkenazi Jewish congregation — whose early members included the teenager who would become Estée Lauder — had dwindled to just a few.
By the time Mobile was included in the Mississippi Territory in 1813, the population had dwindled to roughly 300 people.
Turnover has dwindled to $25m a day.
So margins dwindled to approximately nothing.
Then the money dwindled to nothing.
