I come from a town of about 30k, and I’ve never once felt the need to go anywhere outside of town for any of those things. Given the total number of sports or work locations available, I think that’ll hold true until around the 5k people mark.
As far as I can see it’s not really related to being well-off or not. More related to expectations.
The towns that are "important regional centers" in Northern Scandinavia are often smaller than that.
For a more northerly North American example, High Level Alberta, Canada has a population of 3100 and a service population of 20k. First settlers in 1947, it was incorporated in 1965. There is a paved airstrip long enough for a 747, and a hospital.
It would be the sleepiest of little villages in southern Europe and/or the USA, and would have a service area not much bigger than its population.
The further north you go, the more towns have and require outsized services.
I don’t think it invalidates the point that you can’t expect to find all amenities if you live in a community that cannot support them.
I’d be willing to bet that 95% of people lives in more populated places, and 90% of the remaining 5% lives so out of the way by choice (e.g. if they _wanted_ to move closer to a more populated place it wouldn’t be an undue financial burden).
Even in America, 30K is not a small town. I've lived in and visited probably a hundred places with populations in the hundreds or low thousands.
There are counties in America bigger than New Jersey with less than a thousand people.
The place I grew up was around 1k.