I think the last two posts pretty much tell the story of the small town after WWII. Not pretty and the depression years weren't all that great either. But speaking only of my own hometown, it didn't happen fast and the bypasses weren't built until after the main industry left town, but it happened just the same. It is still a bustling little place but the bustle is in another part of town, as it were. The new industry is hospitality but not exactly tourism.
In theory, there will never be another new small town like we knew up into the 1960s. In places where there is growth, and there are such places, there will be housing developments on the one hand and a shopping center on the other and a car will be a necessity, as they are already. The housing developments will mostly be nice and rather more upscale than they were in the post-war construction housing boom. And the shopping center, typically a "plaza," will be generic, all businesses being chain stores, both national and regional, with the only exceptions being things like barber shops, beauty parlors, tattoo parlors and the like. The supermarket, the convenience stores, the banks, most of the restaurants, the drug stores, the hardware/lumber yards and the department stores will all be chain stores and barely indistinguishable from the next shopping plaza on down the road. There is basically no town. Somewhere there will be schools but no one will walk to school. It isn't such a bad life, provided you have a half-way decent job, but it won't be like it used to be, if it ever was.
The last business remaining in a lot of small towns is the liquor store and sometimes the taverns.
In theory, there will never be another new small town like we knew up into the 1960s. In places where there is growth, and there are such places, there will be housing developments on the one hand and a shopping center on the other and a car will be a necessity, as they are already. The housing developments will mostly be nice and rather more upscale than they were in the post-war construction housing boom. And the shopping center, typically a "plaza," will be generic, all businesses being chain stores, both national and regional, with the only exceptions being things like barber shops, beauty parlors, tattoo parlors and the like. The supermarket, the convenience stores, the banks, most of the restaurants, the drug stores, the hardware/lumber yards and the department stores will all be chain stores and barely indistinguishable from the next shopping plaza on down the road. There is basically no town. Somewhere there will be schools but no one will walk to school. It isn't such a bad life, provided you have a half-way decent job, but it won't be like it used to be, if it ever was.
The last business remaining in a lot of small towns is the liquor store and sometimes the taverns.