underlying factor is that these were just not that pleasant a place to be. once you were in it, it might be okay, but you had to drive to get there. that means as a kid you couldn't get there without your parents which is lame. and if you're an adult you have to plan your trip there. it wasn't a real third place, it was a consumer financialized facsimile of culture, just like everything else in the mid 20th century. the factors you described may not have killed them if they were places people legitimately loved. they could've started militias, they could've staked out the entrances, they could've skipped amazon and kept going, but they didn't, because these places weren't good, they were just mutually beneficial at the time. at the moment they weren't mutually beneficial the people just dropped them, there was no emotional commitment to keep them there.
United States