Who Cares If Small Towns Die?

"Hundreds of little towns on the Great Plains are teetering on collapse. About half the counties on the plains lost population in the '90s -- some to levels lower than during frontier days in the 1800s, when pioneers rolled westward in covered wagons. Outside these isolated little places, it's hard to know whether many people really care. In the suburban ethos that prevails in 21st-century America, the death of so many hick towns elicits barely more than a shrug."