It's been a couple years since I've written
anything new in this series of "Saving Small Towns"
essays. Partly it's been because I've been busy on other projects.
Mostly it's been that I've become discouraged -- discouraged,
and increasingly uncertain about the whole concept of preserving
and protecting what we used to consider the characteristics and
values of smaller towns and rural communities. Here's my problem:
It seems like smaller communities are becoming just like big communities,
only smaller. To put it a little less obtusely: small towns are
looking more and more like what we call "neighborhoods"
in the Big City. Every neighborhood is a mini-reflection of its
parent city; each has everything that the bigger community has,
except maybe the main city administrative offices. Buy food; eat
out; buy a car; repair a car; buy plumbing supplies; rent a plumber;
get 200 TV channels; go to the doctor; go to school - all almost
within walking distance. (Of course, we don't walk; we drive.)
We hardly have to visit The City (or Downtown, as we call it)
at all. It's better not to leave the neighborhood, anyway, because
every neighborhood is the identical twin of all the others. You
could get lost in the wrong one, and never find your way home,
again.
To me, more and more small towns and rural communities are looking
like neighborhoods. All they lack is the Big City surrounding
them -- and maybe the traffic jams, although that is changing,
too.
Now, you may not think it's bad that our small places have become
small big places -- and maybe it isn't, if that's what you're
looking for. But when I see a town in the New Hampshire North
County that looks just like a town in rural Ohio (except for the
hills, or lack thereof) that looks just like a town in California's
Central Valley (except the latter has fewer trees and no snow),
it seems to me we need to consider again just what it is we're
"saving."
So, let's ask the question: when you think about "saving"
your small community, what do you envision? Does it have to do
with size? The looks of the town? Traditions? "Civic pride?"
"Quality of life?" Friendliness? A "healthy local
economy?" Congestion? Local services? What??
I'll continue to share my ideas, but I'd like to hear what yours are.