Identifying if a rural market is worth the investment

[Gordon Ray]

I've been mulling this, and trying to decide if I want to focus on city/high pop locations or rural properties. House prices are much lower, so the barrier of entry is smaller but the economies are on the distressed side. Take, for example, the town I'm looking at (its my hometown area so I'm somewhat familiar as to a decade ago). 

The area is in East Central Illinois, excellent economic growth until about the late 80s early 90s when the GM plant left and since then its been in decline. The mall in town can't keep an anchor store and yet, there are clearly lifers that love the area and call it home (30,000+ to be exact). I'm not sure how to determine all of the metrics, but there's a 55.9% rate of home ownership.

The population has been in consistent decline for nearly 30+ years: 

Wages shadow out to about this:

The area also has a 10.1% unemployment (very likely higher now with Covid)

I've heard of people having good success in midwestern communities but this is a picture that is all to familiar in a lot of rural locations. How do you find the value or make income for yourself in markets like this?

But I've also talked to a realtor (small town realtor, no investment exp) in the area who says if a house is priced right it will get sold quickly.

What are your thoughts? How do you pinpoint areas from a distance, can you still find success in markets like the one I'm illustrating above?