Sad places, indeed, compared with St. Monica's in LA with 7,000 a weekend, all ages, or Holy Martyrs. When in FL, good lord, lots of young people there as in Charlotte!! Of course, making attendance  -- all ages -- in the North intrinsic to the South/West/Southwest or vice-versa is not fair. Attendance (all ages) varies according to the pastor, liturgy, preaching and music. Also, the South has a large religiously engaged sub-culture that the CC plugs into. This is missing in other parts of the US.  So Southern/Western Catholicism is only one slice of US Catholicism as a whole, but it rapidly becoming the most populous part.