[throw0101a]

> My overall point is that profits that at one time would require a town, or be a major part of a city's economy, can be made with a small office's worth of staff.

This has been true for most industries even 'with-in themselves': it's called productivity growth.

The number of employees (or man-hours) needed to create (say) a tonne of steel has dropped a lot, so where previously you had 'steel towns', now a plant may just have a very few (and produce more tonnage than they've ever done).