[paulmd]

The simple explanation is that many of these communities are the proverbial railroad towns that the train no longer stops at. Their key industries have dried up, and the infrastructure costs are unsustainable for the remaining population and economic activity.

The US overbuilt in rural areas during the late 1800s and early 1900s as the railroads pushed west, others had a major industry that has dried up, and a lot of these areas just aren’t sustainable anymore. But America doesn’t have a system for handling de-ruralization gracefully, you still have to deliver power and phone regardless of whether someone wants to live in the middle of Wyoming. We rarely ever rip up a road, etc. Infrastructure is a one-way ratchet.

On top of that most of americas infrastructure is aging in general and we have a general crisis of insufficient revenue to maintain let alone fully replace it. Everything is built on the assumption that it will catch traction and grow, and when it shrinks then there’s no money to maintain or replace it. This is a general crisis across our whole infrastructure - even apart from de-ruralization we’d have overbuilt infrastructure in most places relative to sustainable revenue.