Why Don't De-populating Towns Disappear?

For almost a century we've been told America's rural towns are disappearing. So why are they still here? For about a half-century, big cities have been hemorrhaging population. Why are they still "big cities"? A computing scientist explains it in terms even a planner can understand (or, at least, most of it). "The majority of Americans now live neither in the country nor the city but in the suburban areas of metropolitan counties. It's a slightly puzzling pattern: If we all choose to live near a big city but not in it, who will make the city big?"