You can go out in the valleys right now and ask someone, ~40 years after the mines were shut, whether they'd want the mines back. And a significant proportion would say yes without pausing.

I went to university with a guy who turned around to me one day and said "I never want to leave the Rhondda". Not sure what he does with his design degree up that way but I'm sure he's happy.

There's a great tie to family and friends and where you live, here, which has somewhat died out in the south of England. I hope it survives even as more travel to experience things elsewhere. Of course the south of Wales does have one advantage that was taken from elsewhere, and that's that it's possible to live cheaply in the valleys and commute into the cities by train for work, so it's possible to do both here. I feel like England lost this somewhat with the Beeching report ripping half the rural railways out.