SALENA ZITO: Flown over: The impact of airlines cutting service to flyover country.

American Airlines is not the bad guy in this story; the cuts are in response to a regional pilot shortage affecting the entire industry, which could last for a long time.

But as the very phrase “get rid of the losers” implies, many influential people in elite institutions just shrug off or ignore the economic and emotional effects that this kind of thing has on a small-to-medium-sized city. It is much like when they shrugged when manufacturing, opportunity, and stability left such cities between 30 and 50 years ago.

When an airport stops serving your city, it denies the region’s industries (and travelers) the use of the aviation network, the common denominator that determines successful business and tourism across the country and the globe.

If there were a concerted effort to undermine the economy of Middle America, how would it look different from what’s happening now?