[Almondsetat]

Mining towns are one of the examples of human hubris and stupidity I can't get my head around. If you build something in a shitty place just because there is a single resource you can sell, and everything else you have to import, then what do you expect will happen when said resource dries up? These places were meant for people to go temporarily, make serious money, and then go back to the city or countryside to build a life there, just like people who go to oil rigs do. Instead people brought their families and created an entire town or city in the middle of nowhere.

Now, the past is past and what's done is done. Can't we just acknowledge this basic reality and let these places die and move to better ones? Maybe thanks to the internet one day they will be repopulated by small tech companies operating from a single building with 100 computers and a fiber network, but until then why bullshit ourselves?

[tetromino_]

Deep-sea oil rigs don't grow into towns because there is no spare land to grow on - the "land" is an insanely expensive man-made structure whose size pushes against the limits of human engineering ability. But when oil is found on dry land or even in the sea close to shore, oil industry almost always results in significant urban growth - e.g. see Baku, Los Angeles, or Dubai.

[keiferski]

Cumberland was founded as a fort and a transportation hub first and only later became a mining town.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Precisely correct. It is/was located next to one of the most convenient points to embark on a crossing of the Appalachians.

[overstay8930]

Because people wanted to have families? Like what kind of question is this? Do you think people should put their whole life on pause for a job?

[matteoraso]

In the olden days, these towns wouldn't pay you money, they would pay you scrip issued by the mining company[0]. This could only be used at company-operated stores, so miners were imprisoned in the towns. Moving back literally wasn't an option for the people that worked there, but if there was no other jobs around, where else could you go?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip