When populations age and shrink, everything becomes more difficult. Fewer working hands have to support more elderly retirees. Less spending means less develo

When populations age and shrink, everything becomes more difficult. Fewer working hands have to support more elderly retirees. Less spending means less development, less maintenance, things break down and nobody can afford to fix them. Entire towns and villages slowly wither into nothing. It’s a long, slow, grinding, painful process with no other way around it. And it’s easy to say “maybe that village should disappear” when it’s not your village.