[deMolay]

What happens when the Big City moves into the small town. The Inherent Sustainability of the Small Town

The death of the small town has been widely exaggerated. On the contrary, small towns are thriving just as they have for decades, in perfect balance. Population is steady, infrastructure is sufficient, all goods and services required are available, and it is rarely more than 25 miles to the nearest Wally World– an outing everyone enjoys. There is very little unemployment; kids know that they will either take over the family farm or business or that they will have to seek their futures elsewhere, or some combination of working elsewhere until family concerns or opportunities call them back.

Yea, just post snips please - Pops

[mos6507]

I can haz copy and paste copyright violation?

[ian807]

I grew up in a town smaller than Roundrock and have lived in a few others since as well as some large cities. None of what the author describes surprises me, but my perspective is a little different.

There is an effective apartheid. It's not because the newcomers are newcomers as such. There are a number of unavoidable differences.

In my hometown, there were 3000 people. Jobs had already started moving to Asia. Well paying jobs became sparse. The few local industries that stayed employed people for low-wage manufacturing jobs.

So what happened? Anyone with intelligence, ambition, enough money, and some get-up-and go, got up and went! What was left in the rural areas was.... what was left. Not a flattering portrait, but accurate in many of the places I've seen. It started happening in the 70s mostly as industry migrated, but it's going on today.

So, we have two classes of people, separated by intelligence, ambition and eventually wealth, with all the cultural differences that implies (Folgers vs. Starbucks, camouflage vs khaki), and as elites everywhere do, they tend to run roughshod over those with less ability to fight back. It's not pretty no, but the local populace, I can assure you, is no great prize either.

Are small towns sustainable? In the long run, I think some will. Peak oil will kill off the ones that aren't. And then it won't matter *who* you are.

[Ludi]

Kind of broad strokes in that article. Does "sustainable" mean "still has some people living there"? In ye olden days of the late 19th century & early 20th century, the two small towns I live near both had railroad stations. The line ran all the way to San Antonio - you can still trace much of the route, though the rights of way have been sold. The bigger of these two towns (population now maybe 50), had a cotton gin and an opera house (population then a couple hundred). During the past few years folks have tried to get one restaurant going in that town, both times it has failed. There just isn't enough traffic through the town to support a single restaurant, apparently. There is a beer joint. The post office closed a couple years ago.

Is this small town "thriving"?

[Ludi]

So, we have two classes of people, separated by intelligence, ambition and eventually wealth, with all the cultural differences that implies (Folgers vs. Starbucks, camouflage vs khaki), and as elites everywhere do, they tend to run roughshod over those with less ability to fight back.

In the bigger small town near here (current population maybe 2500), the town is still run by the original settler families. They tend to run roughshod over anyone who opposes them.

[Pops]

The death of the small town has been widely exaggerated. On the contrary, small towns are thriving just as they have for decades, in perfect balance. Population is steady, infrastructure is sufficient, all goods and services required are available, and it is rarely more than 25 miles to the nearest Wally World– an outing everyone enjoys. There is very little unemployment; kids know that they will either take over the family farm or business or that they will have to seek their futures elsewhere, or some combination of working elsewhere until family concerns or opportunities call them back.

This person may know something about Roundrock but aside from the fact there is a WalMart 25 miles from everywhere (which led the way to the extinction of small town businesses) pretty well everything else in this little ditty is easily disproved by looking around the USDA or Census bureau sites.

[Pops]

But hey, if you liked that little story, you'll love some of her other observations...

http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/author/lbtraynham/