I don't begrudge you for doing that, as I would have done (and basically did) the same. But that also highlights how a lot of these places get more fucked up over time.
The same thing is happening/has happened in the US. Basically, nearly all of the opportunity has moved from rural areas to urban and suburban ones. So basically anyone with the slightest modicum of ambition gets up and leaves. So all the people that are left are the people (a) without ambition or (b) are stuck there for other reasons (e.g. lots of early pregnancy). But the end result is those rural areas fall further behind, and many of the people that stay there become even more embittered about their lot. In the US the effect is even more pronounced because rural areas have outsized voting rights due to the way the electoral college and Senate work.