Potential Downgrade of Columbus Airspace...Complaints?

Columbus, GA, has a pretty nice airport (KCSG). It has a long runway and a crosswind runway. It has several thriving flying operations and even gets a few regional airline flights each day. There's a pretty big EAA chapter at the airport which seems like a great idea except for one thing: Columbus' airspace is Class C and aircraft without transponders have to jump through special hoops to get in. That's especially a problem for Jon who owns an old Champ that doesn't even have an electrical system. While chatting with some people at Thunder in the Valley this weekend we learned that this might not be a problem much longer.

According to the locals, the Columbus airspace might get downgraded from Class C to Class D. A quick look at govpulse.us verifies the story. It appears that traffic has been so low at KCSG it doesn't warrant the resources required to provide Class C services.

I think this is a great idea. I suspect Columbus isn't the only place in the country like this. If you want more traffic at an airport, allowing more people to operate there seems like the best way to bring them in. I'm sure Jon would rather be able to swing by the local airport instead of driving an hour to get to a field where his lowly Champ is allowed to operate. It doesn't burn much fuel, but I don't imagine the FBO would mind taking some of Jon's money. Hopefully he won't be the only one to take advantage of these airspace changes.

Do you know of any other situations out there like this...airspace getting downgraded so that it's more accessible to more pilots? If so, we'd love to hear about it.