Smoke from cooking fires, such as this one in Mumbai, India, kills millions of people a year.
I've encountered few people who like to see rural areas go under and be replaced by highways and crowds. Still, your nostalgic view of rural life contains all the good and none of the bad. Such the image you have as a child of watching people cook over an open fire.
The reality is, you saw people who were doing their best to live a good life under poverty. Cooking every day over an open fire becomes a health hazard. 1/3 of the world still cook over an open fire and millions die while many millions more develop lung dysfunction. Also associated with that kind of living is poor sanitation, poor education, lack of opportunity. What you remember in your snow-globe nostalgic childhood memories is part of the story. The people who lived under those conditions might remember the good parts fondly too but wouldn't want to return to them.
The answer is to move forward and not back.
I don't expect that you will read something that is free of propaganda but here is a report on the effects of cooking over that open fire you remember so fondly and you want OTHERS to return to.
Global health: Deadly dinners
Polluting biomass stoves, used by one-third of the global population, take a terrible toll. But efforts to clean them up are failing.
https://www.nature.com/news/global-health-deadly-dinners-1.15286