Most small towns were built to support surrounding farming and ranching. Once that stopped being labor-intensive, the small towns lost their economic reason for being. Farming today is something like 1.2% of the US workforce. Most of the income in many small towns is now from Social Security, disability, and welfare for the people who didn't leave. In time, they will die off. Their town will then go on this list.[1]
Sprawl is non-contiguous growth - subdividing land for housing that is not adjacent to already subdivided land. These towns are not that. In most cases, they are where they were planned to be based on euclidian zoning.
A lot of the small towns are gone. The towns that used to be medium sized are now small and its hard to get services and groceries there.
A lot of these towns would be viable if there was decent internet.
Missouri Start Quilt Co started in a small town and used the available buildings and infrastructure to jump start their business. Would not have been possible without good internet.
There need to be towns in picturesque locations (Been to western Wyoming, it's basically that non-stop) supported by industry other than agriculture.
The ability to remote work should draw a subset of developers and other workers into the area as long as the corresponding infrastructure has been met. Especially for self contracting / employed software engineers.
Maybe someone should create a bit of a tech-oriented template for helping it happen - core element checklist and then ways to invite/entice the rest. Start with decent internet, get some keystone employers, operate out of a co-working space that also brings a cafe/bar to the area. Let the residents of a community vote for what they'd like to see added to the mix of businesses.
Then let entrepreneurs scour town lists for the need that interests them. "I want to paint houses. These two towns in my state need a painter." Or "I moved to this town with my partner; the community is begging for a small garden store - I can do that."
This happens. Not everywhere because as you say it needs basic infrastructure: e.g a Costco within 1h, jet airport within 2h, 100Mbit connectivity, and some other things like neighbors you'd want to talk to. There are plenty of software developers around here in southwest Montana.
Most small towns were built to support surrounding farming and ranching. Once that stopped being labor-intensive, the small towns lost their economic reason for being. Farming today is something like 1.2% of the US workforce. Most of the income in many small towns is now from Social Security, disability, and welfare for the people who didn't leave. In time, they will die off. Their town will then go on this list.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Uni...