> Half the people in the United States live within 17 miles of a decent-sized airport, and ninety percent of the country lives within 58 miles (about an hours drive). Twenty-five percent of the population lives pretty darn close: less than 9 miles.
it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro".
To the extent that you consider the cities of Monroe (Louisiana), Ketchikan (Alaska), Elmira (New York), and La Crosse (Wisconsin) to be the centers of "greater metro" areas.
They're not greater metro areas in the same sense that NYC, LA, SF, or Boston are greater metro areas.
I live in a small rural college town in upstate NY that has its own municipal airport; there are more than 3000 people here (especially during the school year!) for whom this is the closest airport, and it's...well, it's tiny, with (AFAIK) zero regular flights to or from anywhere else.
The closest cities are Utica and Syracuse, each about 30 miles away. Only Syracuse has an airport that's worth driving to if you don't own your own plane (SYR is on the list as being closest for 1.2 million people—probably including me? The maps aren't loading, so I can't tell), and I've never heard anyone describe Syracuse, NY as being a "greater metro area".
Just eyeballing the list, what I'd consider a "significant" airport probably has a cutoff closer to a million passengers per year.
I think you'd be surprised how many there are, especially within a few hundred miles of the Canadian or Mexican border! My local general aviation airport, with no commercial passenger flights, is an international airport because of nearby business/industrial activity.
This is a big deal for workers with families and closer-to-median income. Having to pay $20,000-$30,000/yr to replace services you're getting for free from family (child care, help with home improvement/repair projects, help with transportation, all kinds of stuff) might not be that big a deal to a family making $300,000, but it's huge to a family making $70,000. A 20% increase in income made possible by moving away from family might make good sense for the former, but be break-even at best for the latter (and a losing proposition of CoL is otherwise higher than where they are).
...and then people wonder why birth rate is declining.
Why would I pay to make the next generation of workers for corporate America?
Cities are more compact than suburbs. Kids are entirely dependent on their parents and adults to drive them everywhere, so in many poorly planned suburbs and bedroom communities, they're generally stuck at home. Similarly, the elderly can become isolated from family and friends that are scattered about with no easy way to visit them, or kept from participating in the social life of their town because either there is no social life due to hostile urban planning, or because they cannot get there as driving has become more difficult with age. The benefit of living in walkable cities and towns with good public transportation is especially obvious for these age groups.
What I see A LOT is when people have kids, if they originally came from somewhere else is that the city's shine really dulls. They move back to where they came from, especially if there's a family support structure there. At one place I worked we snatched several senior engineers leaving LA and SF for a more family oriented life.
They move back home, new young people take their place and cycle continues.