I lived in North Pole, Alaska and watched as every business bordered up and the population decreased drastically.
People want public services but refuse to pay for them through taxes. Now they drive an hour to get groceries, but in the winter they are Isolated with no access to food, water, emergency services. That small town thinking is what is destroying the small towns. They didn’t even have internet services and that was 2010. It did have a Blockbuster video still but it closed.