Yeah exactly. What the original commentor is hoping for is a reset to a previous point in time. Which would be nice in many of ways they've outlined, but isn't possible. Imagine if a large corrupted and bloated city could simply not be large, corrupted, or bloated.

In real life we've seen when such a city loses people or revenue, the trauma of the pullback is devastating and the bloat and corruption do not simply go away. Detroit, 1970s NYC after the suburban flight, and the people clinging to shrinking regions of Japan come to mind.

As our countries have a population pullback wealth will shrink, corners will be cut, innovation will slow, and likely more coal than ever will be burned.