Manufacturing also died, so the lower-middle class jobs that were in industry on the outskirts of the cities (that became the suburbs) are gone or going.
I'd love to go back to the rural area I grew up in - it's a much better quality of life, stuff is half or one-quarter of the price they are in an urban area, and there's 1/100th of the population. But there's almost literally no employment opportunities. The one major paper mill in the area is folding, and there's going to be an exodus as the hundreds of people people that work there, and the thousands in the supporting industries, get laid off (not to mention further downstream effects, like school teachers or healthcare workers that become redundant as population crashes). There's nothing that's going to fill that void.
I'd love to go back to the rural area I grew up in - it's a much better quality of life, stuff is half or one-quarter of the price they are in an urban area, and there's 1/100th of the population. But there's almost literally no employment opportunities. The one major paper mill in the area is folding, and there's going to be an exodus as the hundreds of people people that work there, and the thousands in the supporting industries, get laid off (not to mention further downstream effects, like school teachers or healthcare workers that become redundant as population crashes). There's nothing that's going to fill that void.