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Small towns in The USA have been dying since the 1950s. At the time of WWII, more than 50% of Our highways were not paved. People had to shop local because it was inconvenient to drive to the next town or city. Every little town had department stores, mens stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc. Now, in the 21st century guess what? All our US and State highways are paved and most county roads are too. People can and do drive 20, 30, 40 miles for shopping. Wal-Mart surely made it hard on small businesses in the 1980s. However, since the late 1990s, the real "problem" has become the internet. People can shop from home. Wal-Mart didn't do that, and is struggling to keep up with companies like Amazon.As an aside, there are places Wal-Mart has gone into where they employ more people than the the mom & pop stores ever did. And despite what the media would have you believe, Wal-Mart pays more and offers more benefits than those mom & pops ever did. Hey, I'm no Wal-Mart fanboy, but they did not single-handedly kill small town America.Improved consumer mobility is what has killed the small towns. If we'd never paved the highways connecting the towns, every little town would still be a little stand-alone island of commerce. Except, now, the internet doesn't really care if your road is paved, or not. FedEx will still deliver there.An example of this can be found in the little town where we just had our Knot a Knational. Cedar Vale Kansas. At one time is was a prosperous hub of ranching and farming. It had rail service connecting to the outside world, but the highway (US-166) connecting to Arkansas City (32 miles distant) wasn't paved until 1940. It's been improved several times since then, and the trip now takes less than 30-minutes. Pretty hard for local businesses in a town of 500 people to compete with bigger stores awaiting customers only a half-hour down a 65-mph US-Highway. Add to that, the fact that ranching and farming now require less manpower than they ever have, due to mechanization, and it's no wonder these small rural towns and cities have suffered with population decline over the last half century.
As we, ahem, get grayer, living closer to Medical facilities becomes more important. Many rural areas do not have the populations to support independent hospitals.
That is because the town was declared a superfund site and everyone was forced to leave. Very sad situation . Dusty
Every time they make a new 4 lane or a bypass or straighten a highway that was crooked & laced small town to small town, the small towns bypassed lose gas stations and cafes and retail stores that still offered work, brought cas to town, and a way to recirculate money. Real estate values fall since no one is driving through that town and saying, "This is a sweet town..Oh, look at that cute house for sale!"
I'm on the other side of things. My little town as only 12 miles or so outside of Boston on the coast. Every scrap of spare land was divided up and sold by 1950. You can stuff about 20,000 people in this tiny space and that's been the population for as long as I can remember. However, things have changed considerably in the past 50 years or so. When I was a kid, there was a solid fishing community (the town was founded in 1629 when cod was king). We also had Hood sailmakers- the inventor of Dacron sailcloth and at the time the largest sail loft in the world. The recreational marine industry provided lots of jobs for tradesmen. Eventually, I became part of that tradition.
My wife had Stage IV Ovarian cancer and we absolutely cannot leave our big city cancer hospitals.