[antasvara]

The Venn diagram of "people that want traditional small town life" and "people that currently live in a small town" has a smaller overlap than you'd think.

The small towns in my area are desirable not just because they're small, but because they're small and have the same amenities as a bigger town. These towns are also increasingly relying on debt to fund decades of deferred maintenance just to keep the amenities they already have alive.

This would become dire if (for example) property values fell, as residential real estate taxes make up the majority of tax revenue. This might happen if demand for the town fell (perhaps due to fewer people), which would quickly become a catastrophic cycle (revenues fall, roads and schools deteriorate, which makes the town less desirable, repeat ad infinitum).

[bombcar]

This is oft repeated, though examining the small town budget (though perhaps I'm not in a "small" town at 10k residents) shows that the vast majority of the property tax goes to the schools, roads et al are a rounding error.

In a future with few or no kids, schools won't be needed.

[antasvara]

The balance here is that good schools are one of the amenities that keep property values high and they have pretty high fixed costs.

So you lose some economy of scale when enrollment drops, you have to cut school funding, which makes the schools worse, which makes the town less desirable, which drops real estate prices, etc.

[dpark]

I bet the set of people seeking out “small town life” are more likely to have children than the average city dweller. If so, the funding problem gets worse over time for small towns. More kids with fewer adults funding schools.