Why cruisers still made sense after 1950

Were there reasons to keep building cruisers after the 1950s?

Yes. Cruisers offered independent presence and the hull volume needed for early large anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems before destroyers grew to cruiser size.

Cruisers remained useful for presence missions and independent deployment after the 1950s. Early anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems needed substantial hull volume, leaving cruisers as the principal large missile warships through much of the 1960s and into the mid-1970s. Destroyers took on comparable batteries as they grew toward cruiser size. Smaller missiles also helped reduce the space needed for those weapons.