The point of the article is to normalize that "americans" is synonymous with "urban new yorkers" and the rest of the population doesn't count.

Clearly, rural mining ghost towns are familiar with the concept of slowly shutting down a boomtown. See also the rust belt cities which were de-industrialized about three generations ago, and continue a slow decline, or at least slower growth than the rest of the country, since then. Some like Detroit are going to something like ghost town status, others like Janesville are doing OK ish, it all seems to depend on demographics. Compare Flint MI and Janesville WI pre and post their respective GM plant shutdowns.