Economic Survival on the High Plains

Has this slice of Americana on the High Plains, from North Dakota to Texas, been swallowed up by a world economy that demands global solutions? At a time when thousands of American jobs, many formerly in rural communities, are disappearing overseas, can rural America ever swing back the pendulum of population shifts that has seen most small towns  on the High Plains lose half of their population in the last 20 years? Has the monster that began as just another five and dime store on the town square of a small Arkansas burg in the 1950’s, forever doomed the commercial survival of the independent  rural merchant? Does the construction of a new Supercenter hasten the boarding of store fronts in countless small towns, not long ago vibrant with the life of Main Street America, but now mere ghost towns, as dead as the summer weeds  that spring from every crack of their neglected pavement? To put it in simple terms, can rural communites on the High Plains survive in today’s global ecomonmy?

A lot of questions.