What was the initial cause of the decline of many small towns across the United States particularly in the Great Plains?

Answer 1

In the Great Plains region, the economic base for every small community is agriculture. In the 1970s, the combined effects of inflation and recession led to a disparity in rising agricultural production costs versus stagnate commodity prices. To cope with this economic challenge, producers were forced to increasingly enlarge their production operations to take advantage of the economies of scale to remain economically viable. Farmers who previously could make a living on 160 acre farms, were forced to enlarge their production acreages to as much as 1,500 acres or more in order to survive. This displaced many farmers who could not make the transition to large farming enterprises and led to the decline in the number of farmers working the land. This steady drop in the number of farmers trickled down to a decreased rural population, which then trickled down to a decreasing small-business community. Citizens were forced to seek opportunities in metropolitian areas where employment opportunities were not dependent on an agriculture base. Hence, the decline in small-town America.