Who’s going to pay to repurpose the land? There’s zero economic value for anyone involved. Plus the workforce is half what it was, they have other things to do. That’s assuming they’re not already broke from spending 20 years supporting retirees that outnumber them 2:1 while watching their own businesses halve in size.
Saying there is 0 economic value in repurposing land is just silly. And just because a business has half the customers does not mean that the standard of living gets cut in half. You're only looking at one side of the economic equation.
