Bad Saulgau is a lovely place, no doubt. But it is in a slow decline (among many others).

During industrialization companies settled where (cheap) labour was: So the Black Forest could build up an industry for clocks and watches. Textile businesses grew in my home region.

Later on, these businesses left for Asia. The Black Forest region could overcompensate this with tourism, my place partly with machinery factories.

So during the 19th and 20th century the pattern was that businesses were in search for cheap labour. Today this is very different: New industries are looking for highly skilled people, as "normal" work gets replaced by automatised production or is transferred to Eastern Europe or China.

So isn't there a fundamental change in the pattern of how new businesses grow? Globalization and technological progress change things a lot.