From what I've seen in my area, small town figure skating club memberships have been dwindling in numbers for the past couple decades. There have been a lot of clubs in my region that have either amalgamated with other clubs just to stay afloat, or have folded all together. The interest just isn't there anymore for the younger generations to take up figure skating. Meanwhile you see numbers in sports like girls hockey and competitive cheerleading soaring - both of these barely existed 20 years ago for the masses. Maybe the greater variety of available sports for girls plays a big part in all this. Cheerleading and hockey are popular and are slightly less costly than skating.