CAMBRIDGE, Ohio (RNS) I’m sure someone had a good reason for building the handsome Pritchard Laughlin Civic Center on an isolated stretch of U.S. 40, with not a single restaurant or modern motel nearby.

In a driving culture, it probably made sense to sprawl onto empty land two miles from the city that provides its mailing address, and two exits from the two interstates listed in the center’s marketing materials.

But as handsome as the civic center is, I wonder if local leaders yearn for a do-over.

After giving the keynote address at the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio, I left the civic center but instead of taking I-70 back to my motel, I turned left toward Cambridge, the 11,000-person seat of Guernsey County.

A once-thriving glass industry left Cambridge with a charming downtown of brick and stone buildings. I treasure county seat downtowns with their sturdy yet playful architecture, classical aspirations, and confident courthouses built in the post-Civil War era when everything seemed possible.

I can imagine townsfolk patronizing downtown stores in 1930, when the city’s fortunes peaked, and traveling salesmen staying at the elegant Hotel Berwick.

Most of that is gone now. The major stores closed long ago, bound for auto-friendly sites south of town or swamped by big-box stores. The Hotel Berwick was declared a firetrap in 1979. The once-prominent Red Corner now houses a pawn shop, in a city where one-third of children live in poverty.

Why, then, did they allow the civic center to be built far from downtown, on a site that is guaranteed to send patrons back onto the interstate and not into downtown? Why did they build something that allowed 500 Episcopalians not to see their city, shop in their stores and eat meals in downtown restaurants?

A civic center should be funneling people into town, not away from it.

I’ve seen this story played out all across America. Interstate highways sent people around towns, not through them. Outlying convention, medical and sports venues sucked life away from the citizens who were paying their construction bonds. Local employers made short-sighted business decisions, ignored changing markets, and took their workers down with them.

Now America’s heartland is dying from those poor decisions.

People are hurt, and with politicians egging them on, they are turning their anger against the wrong targets. They are blaming immigrants for jobs actually lost to Wal-Mart and poorly run enterprises. They bemoan federal taxes that are necessary because local economies were trashed by ineffective local leaders.

Why was no one looking out for local merchants when franchises came to town? Who benefited from locating new facilities and highways away from local businesses? Why were citizens left to fend for themselves when employers got tax and zoning breaks, avoided risk and then sold out?

Bashing immigrants won’t undo what local politicians and landowners did when they spent public money to benefit a few. Dialing down Social Security won’t touch leaders who were inattentive or in cahoots with outsiders. Fighting Washington for being too big won’t reverse decay caused by local business owners who thought too small.

The tragedy of bad decisions doesn’t go away. As long as decision-makers aren’t held accountable for what they actually did, there’s no incentive for them or their successors to do better.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)