Small Towns Decline

Are there jobs in that town? That seems to make or break a small town.

Small towns not connected to big cities are shrinking unceasingly, unless there is some special local thing to save them, like a special factory or a tourist attraction. In my part of the south almost every town had their downtown destroyed first by walmart, and then later by the ecosystem of small businesses all withered away and now the downtowns of places with a few thousand people have almost nothing but a grocery store and gas station. On top of the young people move out of all of these tow

It's quite common for people to reach child-raising or retirement age and move to such places, or even leave their families there and continue to work in the big city. These cities also tend to have a lot of cottage-industry scale businesses: the average small American town is probably the worldwide capital of some incredibly obscure product or service. A town needs hard-currency inflow to pay for their imports but not a terribly large amount of it.

There are lots of small towns across the US where it has not worked out.I spent a couple years in Macomb, IL when I was a kid. Take a look at that place on Street View.Overall population growth is mostly what has allowed for things to “work out” previously, but as the rate of growth slows down or even goes negative for the first time in recent history, the necessary conditions may not hold anymore for things to “work out”.

This seems like the standard shift seen in all industrialized countries. Rural areas and small towns don't have the density to maintain economic viability. There just aren't enough labor-intensive jobs to keep small towns afloat.I would imagine the American development pattern makes the economics even less favorable. Cars are very expensive and most (all?) small towns are designed exclusively for car-dependency. Infrastructure cost scales with sprawl too, so city costs to maintain i

To me this is a good sign. Not every small town needs to exist. Historically there were reasons for them - agriculture I guess. But now they often serve no purpose except to house the old people who have trouble leaving. The fact is the world doesn't need as many farmers as it used to so these places are better off left to disappear. It might feel sad if your hometown is lost but it's only physical things whose usefulness has passed.

Yes, the big difference is in the decay of small towns. There are far fewer middle class jobs than before, what can you really make in small towns that's competitive in the global economy?

There are ten thousand small towns (like, say, Bird Island) whose population has been declining for decades, due to lack of economic opportunity. You don’t have to choose between a city and an isolated home.

What jobs? Rural and suburban communities not linked to an urban area have less and less every year. The cities are growing and towns are dying: there are very few new jobs, much less “more productive” ones.Think on it for a second: if you could work a better job than small grocery store employee, wouldn’t you have already? Why would you wait on walmart to exist?

There are plenty of Rust Belt or coal country towns that are decaying where all have left except the elderly.My wife's grandmother lived in such a town, and when we visited it was clear the town had seen better days. Most things were closed, hardly any people our age, and those that remained were looking to leave. Almost everyone we saw was old.It can mean success, but doesn't have to.