I do mean that seriously - first, as I pointed out, the local rural ratio of EU matters, and that is materially different than the current global average situation or e.g. China.
In Western EU, the depopulated rural areas don't have many people, don't have a huge portion of population, and the size of them doesn't matter.
And rapid urbanization is continuing everywhere. Within a few decades, sub-Saharan Africa will have the urbanization rate that China has now and China will be closer to towards the urbanization rate of the western world than the current ratio.
And if nothing changes, USA will very soon be as urbanized as Western EU (it's currently a bit more rural) and Western EU will be even more urbanized as it is today.
The rural areas are getting more empty, quality of life is decreasing due to depopulation, and because of that they're getting even more empty. In the long run, the population rural areas would likely converge to whatever portion of workforce is needed to run the primary agriculture, which used to be ~2% in 20th century for advanced societies and now with increasing automation is likely to drop to 1%. Within two generations, rural USA will not have anywhere close to 15% in rural counties, and that's unavoidable.
In Western EU, the depopulated rural areas don't have many people, don't have a huge portion of population, and the size of them doesn't matter.
And rapid urbanization is continuing everywhere. Within a few decades, sub-Saharan Africa will have the urbanization rate that China has now and China will be closer to towards the urbanization rate of the western world than the current ratio.
And if nothing changes, USA will very soon be as urbanized as Western EU (it's currently a bit more rural) and Western EU will be even more urbanized as it is today.
The rural areas are getting more empty, quality of life is decreasing due to depopulation, and because of that they're getting even more empty. In the long run, the population rural areas would likely converge to whatever portion of workforce is needed to run the primary agriculture, which used to be ~2% in 20th century for advanced societies and now with increasing automation is likely to drop to 1%. Within two generations, rural USA will not have anywhere close to 15% in rural counties, and that's unavoidable.