What happened to small towns?

[SSuperDave]

Somewhere there's a joke that's punch line ends with something about "Episcopalians not recognizing the Pope and Baptists not recognizing each other in the liquor store". I wish I could remember it.

The way I've always heard it was that Jews don't recognize Jesus as the son of God, Methodists don't recognize the pope as the head of the church, and Baptists don't recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters.

 

[Stearmen]

Of course it is rare that a town will become an actual ghost town. People will still live there. A town like where my wife's parents moved when they retired might become largely a retirement community.

My state officially has 640 ghost towns, though some say it's over 1,500! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_Colorado

 

[BlueTrain]

It sure sounds like one of the major points of change in smaller towns was when highways became more important than railroads. Previously, towns were more or less centered around the railroad. That ceased to be the case at some point after WWII. In some really small towns, but towns nevertheless, the trains no longer stopped even though there had been little change in the highways. Even the really small towns, of, say, a thousand people, might have had a train station and a school. Of course, there were all the people who lived somewhere outside of town, too, but one such small town I'm thinking of, which did have about a thousand people in 1950, had a regular main street (two blocks long), a bank, a large and modern elementary school, hardware store and so on. There were even some nice brick houses there, too, but there was no supermarket. Not yet a ghost town, there are about 100 people living there now.

Being a county seat was no guarantee of any particular growth or even permanence. In Virginia, some county seats consist of nothing more than the courthouse and a couple of other buildings. Although my hometown is the county seat now, it was not so without some effort. The county was a border county in a border state during the Civil War and some citizens were on one side, the rest on the other side. It was probably difficult to be in the middle. One faction wanted the county seat in one town and it was moved there during the war. After the war the other faction came in the middle of the night and moved it back to where it had been before the war.

Vitanola's town does sound like an idealized small town of the turn of the century, a bustling center of life and economic activity. Large scale production and distribution of goods took a toll on things like that. But "bustling centers of life and economic activity" should not imply clean water, clean air, paved roads or especially kind and gentle and sober citizens.

 

[Trenchfriend]

 

[HudsonHawk]

Speaking of songs about small towns....

 

[belfastboy]

My wife and I live in Canada but we vacation each year for up to 8 weeks, travelling the US in our motor home. Each trip we pick a small town to visit for 4 days to a week. No dramatic reason but just to see what is there. Sometimes nothing of import but always worth the time and mileage. I remember one of the first times we did it we wandered the downtown and bemoaned the death of the town. Store fronts closed, a Saturday night ghost town feel to it with many of the existing stores presenting as barely holding on. It wasn't until the next day when we ventured to the outskirts of the other side of town where we discovered the action. Malls and big box stores proliferated. The Safeway was one of the best I have seen for selection, a Barnes and Noble to die for as well as a Costco, Walmart etc. The parking lot(s) were full and rather than this being a dead or dieing town was actually very vibrant......just not in the old downtown. I got over my indignation when it dawned on me that people in small towns still want and deserve the price, selection and ease that the big box stores provide. Just because it does not fit my idealized vision of what a small town should look like does not make it "bad'. Things change, towns and people evolve.

 

[BlueTrain]

Many years ago when so-called discount stores began appearing, communities at some level would pass "fair trade" laws, which were nothing more than a price-support system so the local stores could compete with the big stores. Obviously the big stores won but it was consumers that wanted the lowest prices that made the difference. In spite of anything I may have said already somewhere else, it's hard to say if the small town retailer was a better citizen than the big stores were, who apparently had a difficult enough time competing themselves, judging from the numbers that went out of business. There are a lot of other things to say on the matter and it isn't a simple issue.

The biggest thing is, you really have to have transportation now. But I guess you always did if you didn't live in town.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Of course, with those "lower prices" come the egregious labor abuses that make those "lower prices" possible. And the conditioning of the consumer to accept shoddy quality in exchange for those "lower prices" and the culture of disposability and waste those "lower prices" create. All part and parcel of the same package.

All those factors were considered and discussed widely with the rise of the consumers-rights movement in the 1930s. Consumers Union regularly published the labor ratings of various manufacturers right alongside its ratings of their merchandise.

In my recollection, the biggest advantage in dealing with a locally owned merchant was that you *knew* that merchant face to face. He or she was a part of your town and had to hold his or her head up in public. If any local merchant was a crook or a cheat, word got out fast. There was no "head office" to blame or hide behind if something went wrong -- the merchant had to answer directly to the community. That expressed community pressure at the cash register was a powerful force keeping the merchant on the straight and narrow.

 

[BlueTrain]

Perhaps but that same pressure was what brought in the big box retailer, too. It's hard to comment on labor abuses, though. It suggests that factories (and we're speaking of factory good) were good places to work in the past. Sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't. And while we're on the subject, an organic farmer does not necessarily make for a better place to work as a farm laborer as a farmer who grows everything in sawdust and petrochemicals. My definition of "organic" is anything that contains no petroleum products, even though, strictly speaking, petroleum is organic.

We always like to complain about the cheap imported junk. But remember, we used to make our own junk right here. There will always be a market for cheap goods. And if it isn't made where you live, it's imported. Sometimes, imported products are considered better, too, always have been. But I do understand what you are saying.

No one ever knows or understands the pressures other people live and work under.

 

[Fading Fast]

... I got over my indignation when it dawned on me that people in small towns still want and deserve the price, selection and ease that the big box stores provide. Just because it does not fit my idealized vision of what a small town should look like does not make it "bad'. Things change, towns and people evolve.

You said it better than I did, but this was part of the point I was driving at with my grocery store / supermarket post a page back. The people in our town - my family included - were struggling with a poor economy and inflation in the '70s and supermarkets offered more affordable goods in a more convenient store.

I have no idea if the supermarket upstream was abusive in its labor practice versus the local grocer (they both carried a lot of the same goods), but the supermarket jobs were union ones and the grocery guy paid minimum wage or near it with no benefits to his workers (I know, cause I took the pumping gas job over his job offer and considered the supermarket one - would have had to join a union even if just summer help - but the gas one worked best for me for that summer).

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Many older American towns went through three stages of growth: river, railroad, highway. Most towns, small and large, were situated on some sort of river. River traffic dominated the early 19th century, and the big river valleys developed a whole river culture. Read Mark Twain for this. Old Town Albuquerque is on the Rio Grande, but in the later 19th century downtown moved a mile or so east to the railroad station. That's where the old hotels and movie theaters are located. Old Town would have been deserted but it is now a major tourist attraction with lots of good shops and restaurants.

Then Route 66 came through and the town got strung out east-west along the Mother Road. In the late 50s-early 60s the Interstates came through with I-40 following much of old 66 east-west, crossing I-25 north-south. Now Albuquerque is shaped like a big X along the two interstates with all the big malls located just off them. The old railroad-centered downtown declined for decades but is now being redeveloped as an entertainment center. I don't know what phase will be next, other than I probably won't live to see it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Presented without comment.

America’s newest communities are designed to look like old-fashioned small towns

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/am...ook-like-old-fashioned-small-towns-2016-08-04

 

[Fading Fast]

Many older American towns went through three stages of growth: river, railroad, highway. Most towns, small and large, were situated on some sort of river. River traffic dominated the early 19th century, and the big river valleys developed a whole river culture. Read Mark Twain for this. Old Town Albuquerque is on the Rio Grande, but in the later 19th century downtown moved a mile or so east to the railroad station. That's where the old hotels and movie theaters are located. Old Town would have been deserted but it is now a major tourist attraction with lots of good shops and restaurants.

Then Route 66 came through and the town got strung out east-west along the Mother Road. In the late 50s-early 60s the Interstates came through with I-40 following much of old 66 east-west, crossing I-25 north-south. Now Albuquerque is shaped like a big X along the two interstates with all the big malls located just off them. The old railroad-centered downtown declined for decades but is now being redeveloped as an entertainment center. I don't know what phase will be next, other than I probably won't live to see it.

I agree with all the above. And then there are the kooky one-offs. Buffalo NY is an interesting one as the completion of the Erie Canal in the early 1800s made it a major city and the completion of the St. Lawerence Seaway in the 1950s killed it. You win some, you lose some. I've always felt bad for Buffalo as there was so much there and so much promise for more at one time.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, that's a Walt Disney main street idea if there ever was one. It's a little like the "town centers" that are being built instead of indoor shopping malls. They're nice enough places, no worse than an indoor mall. But an old-fashioned small town they ain't. But I don't know if that's good or bad. It is impossible to recreate something from a century ago, even if you wanted to.

Those stages of growth are pretty much correct, within limits. Many towns exist that are not on navigable waterways and many even exist where the railroad never went--and never will. But otherwise that's pretty much true. The next phase is, or was, air transportation, but I'm not certain that it effects how communities evolve. For one thing, they have mostly only been built near the large cities. Small towns just have "airfields." But another thing has happened.

Airports, because they need a lot of space and there is the noise, too, were built well outside of town, say about twenty miles or less. But as the cities grew, development surrounded the major airports, leading to complaints from the new residents about the noise, mainly, also increase road traffic in the area, in spite of the fact that the airport was built well outside of town to avoid such problems. In other words, you can't win.

A similar argument is made against building any new road because it increases the traffic. Well, maybe.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'm not "from" a small town, but I did live in one while attending university. There were the usual town vs. gown tensions, which were ironic in light of how the locals fought tooth and nail to have the college that the university became located there in the first place, way back in the 1890's.

The big issue was an adequate water supply, and when the big location committee muckity mucks came to inspect the town, all of the locals conspired to be watering their lawns to send the message that there was plenty of water. Upon the agreement that water would be supplied in perpetuity for free, the town- and not the one on the main rail line ten miles to the west- was chosen. Of course, that agreement was deep-sixed about ten years later when the town began charging for water, and it has remained a bone of contention since.

I've heard all of the horror stories of big corporations destroying family business and such, but there is another side to it that I saw. There wasn't a decent restaurant in the town, and part of it was that the local eatery owners wanted no competition - whatsoever. They fought like hell to keep McDonald's out but finally lost that battle (It IS a college town, after all.) And unlike when I was there, now the town can boast several decent restaurants where you can sit down and have a drink with your dinner. They still have a Sunday alcohol blue law (no package sales before noon, and no bars open on Sunday at all) but things are now at least a little less provincial and backward. As far as any decent retail stores- big box, little box, family owned- they never had anything decent, and still don't.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I miss blue laws. I grew up with them, and it was nice to have one day of the week when you didn't feel compelled to be doing something. When I'm dictator, they're coming back. And no Sunday baseball games that begin later than 2pm, either.

 

[Fading Fast]

I miss blue laws. I grew up with them, and it was nice to have one day of the week when you didn't feel compelled to be doing something. When I'm dictator, they're coming back. And no Sunday baseball games that begin later than 2pm, either.

I'm good with no shopping on Sunday (way too much shopping in the world anyway) and love the baseball start time (otherwise, many of the games run past my bedtime), but I do enjoy the occasional Bloody Mary with my late-breakfast on some Sundays.

How insane is it that New York City - a liberal, secular, elitist bastion of partying, sin, business - basically a work-hard, play-hard city still has a few blue law vestiges such as no alcohol can be served before noon on Sunday?

 

[LizzieMaine]

We don't allow the sale or serving alcohol here before 9am Sunday, which is a relatively recent slackening of the old 11am law. Methodists wouldn't even drink grape juice before 11am.

 

[BlueTrain]

Madam, you will not be a dictator; you will be a, or rather, The Queen.

Now, with that settled and out of the way, there were really some parts of some towns that were positively idyllic at the turn of the century. Some families may even have a box of old photos of pleasant and mostly empty residential streets with nice, well-kept late 19th century houses (well, they were still pretty new then), peopled by well-dressed and fashionable men, women and children. Motor traffic was still years away and you didn't leave your buggy outside on the street. True, there was a nice downtown with up and coming businesses to attend to all your personal and household goods. But aside from church on Sunday and perhaps a visit to the ice cream parlor, most of your time was spent around the house. After all, that was the gay nineties. Things were still pretty new. The Indian troubles were in the past, the war in Cuba and the Philippines ended almost before we read about it in the paper. In fact, when the news arrived, it pushed the gold rush news off the front page. Life was pretty good up where you lived.

It was a different story down (it would always be "down") on the other side of town. The neighborhood along the river was rough, or so they said. You never went there. And that shantytown out there on the pike; why, something should be done! They're all up to no good. Just mark my words! Of course, that's what everyone is like over in Leadville. It's just awful what became of that place since they built that new factory. And all of them foreigners they brought in to work there! I just don't know what's become of the country. Yessiree, it's nothing like it used to be.

Well, I have to go now. I have some letters to write to go out in the afternoon mail.

 

[Fading Fast]

We don't allow the sale orserving alcohol here before 9am Sunday, which is a relatively recent slackening of the old 11am law. Methodists wouldn't even drink grape juice before 11am.

9am works -noon is crazy, especially for this city.