This is a really excellent description of a coal town in terminal decline, which gets at several of the issues behind growing regional disparity 1/ nytimes.com/2019/12/06/bus…
One point just mentioned in passing is that the crash in coal employment had nothing to do with a liberal "war on coal': it began under GOP presidents, and the industry had virtually vanished long before Obama began taking climate action 2/ 
Another point is that people while we have some people urging us to aid declining regions, in reality we already provide massive aid: Social Security, Medicare, and other transfer programs provide almost half Grundy's income 3/
The question is, what could give the town new "export" industries (selling to other parts of the US as well as the world)? What would induce businesses to move there? I'm at a loss 4/
