How do you go about &quot;closing down&quot; a small town?<p>The very small city where I grew up (pop. 4,700) had, 25 years ago, a Carpenter school bus manufacturing plant, a limestone company, and (at least) two other small factories. If you didn&#x27;t work at one of those, you likely worked in the service industry supporting them.<p>First, the school bus plant moved to another location a few hours away. If memory serves, most of the employees were offered the opportunity to transfer but few did. While they could have moved their households, most of their immediate families were there and they didn&#x27;t want to leave them.<p>Then, the other factories closed down one by one. One was purchased and its operations moved to Mexico for the cheaper labor. The other factory was shut down as well, its operations moved to a different state where another factory was expanding.<p>The limestone company still exists but there are no new jobs there. The folks who do work there mostly started right after high school when, for example, dad (who worked at the company) got his son a job there.<p>The jobs are all gone but, somehow, the city remains.<p>Myself, I moved out of town as soon as I had the chance. I live 45 minutes away in a city 15x the size. I drive past there occasionally, when I have to go to my company&#x27;s office for some reason (I work remotely). I usually stop by and see my grandmother who still lives there. Everyone else in my family has pretty much left. The population has mostly stayed the same.<p>In my opinion, this small town no longer serves a useful purpose. It has been overrun with drugs. The only &quot;jobs&quot; available there are in the service industry and anyone with a &quot;good job&quot; works out of town and commutes.<p>That brings me back to your question. How does one just close it down? You just can&#x27;t tell thousands of people to get out, that &quot;we&#x27;re turning the lights off on June 30th so you better be gone by then&quot;.