Spain had to deal with major cuts to their coal industry too: Loss of competitiveness closed mines that employed tens of thousands of people directly, and entir

Spain had to deal with major cuts to their coal industry too: Loss of competitiveness closed mines that employed tens of thousands of people directly, and entire towns indirectly. Asturias, the region with the most mines went from being near the top of Spain's GDP to the bottom third, and has never recovered. What was done then, and it's still in progress in the few mines that are already open, was to provide amazing early retirement deals: Instead of laying off young workers, anyone over 50 gets to retire with full pay. While that minimized the pain to secondary industries, as the retirees still kept their income, The region ultimately produced less, and massive emigration followed. This doesn't make me wish for this solution on anyone. The best solutions, which I don't think are practical in US rural communities for cultural issues, is to incentivize replacement industries: For instance, St Louis hollowed out for decades, just like Detroit, but the city is doing better lately by fostering technology startups near its universities. This is revitalizing areas of the city that were slums for decades. It seems difficult for American rural areas to do this though, if just because of the big culture clash between the old school America and people that create companies imitating San Francisco culture.