I agree on the dying small towns.

When I was younger, in the mid 80's, I visited family members for months at a time, in a small town in Europe. The visits were a revelation from my point of view (I grew up in a very car-dependent suburb where people didn't really know each other).

People stopped by the house regularly, no appointment, to say hello. I went shopping with my aunt many mornings, we went separately to the butcher, baker, a greengrocer, and a small grocery. The sidewalks were packed with other people doing the same, and people were greeting each other all the time. Lots of visiting happened.

I visited this same town again about 4 years ago. Things have changed pretty radically for the worse. Now, at around the same time of day where previously the sidewalks would be busy with pedestrians, doing errands and shopping, there was almost nobody. The buildings are the same, it's the people and community that are different.

And this is definitely not one of the worst small towns ("filled with drug addicts, despair, and people too old to move anywhere else, and little in between"). This was still an economically viable place, just now much less social, much less community.

Yes, things are fucked. I am interested in how the rebuilding can start to happen. And how I can help initiate.