communities that formerly bought locally produced goods
How long has it been since these communities actually did that? Small towns can't really support the diversity of industry it takes to buy more local goods than shipped-in goods in a modern-day lifestyle.
Never for most of rural areas. By the time most towns in say Iowa were getting setup the industrial revolution was underway: the town wasn't making anything, the blacksmith was taking mass produced horseshoes and fitting them to the horse. What the town did produce (example: brooms...) wasn't for the town it was for the whole country.
The newspaper was produced for the town. Everything else was either services that can't be mass produced or the town was doing their own mass production for export.
> Sorry, by locally produced, I'm referring to (mostly) foodstuffs, additionally, local small retailers that were resellers.
A town in the Great Plains doesn't have a climate fit to make most foods locally, unless you call taking shipped-in ingredients and cooking them "making" food.
It certainly can (and did) make most food locally, it's just that it has to be different food - you eat what you can make from locally produced ingredient and don't eat what you can't. The type of food we eat has changed a lot, and the expectation to have "ethnic" food with products grown on another continent, or to have the same vegetables available year-round instead of them being seasonal - that's a relatively recent thing.
> It certainly can (and did) make most food locally, it's just that it has to be different food - you eat what you can make from locally produced ingredient and don't eat what you can't.
No. Not in eastern Montana. There are regions where you can't live off the land year-round like you think.
How long has it been since these communities actually did that? Small towns can't really support the diversity of industry it takes to buy more local goods than shipped-in goods in a modern-day lifestyle.