Tucumcari, New Mexico was bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1981. A 2003 federal Route 66 program relit its neon, and artists painted almost 100 murals.

Broken Hill, New South Wales anchors a visitor economy worth over AUD 200 million a year in modelled tourism sales, and its mines have never stopped.

Terlingua, Texas, a ghost town of 78 people at the 2020 census, staged a world championship chili cookoff in its ruins on October 21, 1967.