Housing isn't exactly affordable if it doesn't come with a job to pay for it. It's not just that manufacturing jobs have left. Every time we empty some mine of

Housing isn't exactly affordable if it doesn't come with a job to pay for it. It's not just that manufacturing jobs have left. Every time we empty some mine of the last bit of ore, you get a town no one particularly wants to live in anymore. Every increase in agricultural efficiency results in fewer farmers, and thus less reason to live in rural farm towns.