[Probably the best bet would be to reverse the longstanding demographic flow from the towns to the big cities. ]
Or you could transform urban mega-failures by facilitating more localized community structures within; a part of which being the maintenance of technologically-enhanced, efficient, and sustainable urban agriculture methodologies such as:
https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoAquaponics
This could be good both within cities and in small towns from the provision perspective.
But I’m working off the idea of “human maintenance”. For many years now, both Europe and the US have come to accept high rates of unemployment and underemployment, because a limited number of people, with technology, are hyperefficient.
So instead of being creative or productive, the “excess population”, as E. Scrooge would say, are instead wasted by distracting them with empty entertainments. But these, too, are products of the big cities.
It is the tradeoff of a million monkeys using Twitter, vs. one bored individual at home writing a book. In many ways, the book is better for all concerned.
During the Baby Boom, there were huge tracts of boring suburbia with very limited entertainments. One of the few things most families could afford were instruments, so garage bands proliferated, as did the amount of music produced. A huge burst of creativity.
As I suggested, the US may be looking at 10-20 years of economic torpor. Is it better that millions of people spend their lives on welfare, hypnotized by the flashing lights of the Internet and video games, or that they actually do something?