I have family in rural Texas so I drive through lots of rural towns a couple times a year. I can confirm that the OP's story of urban decay sounds very familiar

I have family in rural Texas so I drive through lots of rural towns a couple times a year. I can confirm that the OP's story of urban decay sounds very familiar (though in many of the ones that I see, there is no up-and-coming suburban edge). Interestingly, a similar pattern can be found in places like Dallas. You very much get that layering of suburbs where the outermost is all new and shiny, and the further inwards you go the more decayed it is. But of course it's Dallas, so towards the center you don't get a ghost town, you get a concrete jungle with grass poking through the cracks in the pavement, where everyone wants to work in the high-rises there but nobody wants to actually live there. This is the type of "decay" that gradually expands outward into the formerly-desirable suburbs.