One of most obvious reasons for the decline of small American towns besides losing it's industrial base is what this article calls it, the hollowing out of small towns. It is the losing of our best and brightest young people to college and the newly minted graduates go on and never look back. This article, from a new book, explains what is going on in the study and whose ears the problem has and the hope that some answers will come and save rural America from becoming one vast wasteland.