“We drive up and down the gruesome, tragic suburban boulevards of commerce, and we’re overwhelmed at the fantastic, awesome, stupefying ugliness of absolutely everything in sight — the fry pits, the big-box stores … the lube joints, the carpet warehouses … the uproar of signs, the highway itself — clogged with cars — as though the whole thing had been designed by some diabolical force bent on making human beings miserable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
James Howard Kuntsler \u201cHome From Nowhere\u201d, 1996<\/p>\n\n\n\n
—<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In May of 2021, I pulled into the Dollar General parking lot in Sunset Beach, North Carolina. In that sun drenched beach town, during that pre-season North Carolina summertime, everything was looking up. COVID cases down trending, vaccines widely available, and Governor Roy Cooper had long since done away with a statewide mask mandate. Local businesses had quickly followed. The word \u201cvariant\u201d did not yet exist in American popular culture. But approaching the Dollar General doors, I caught a familiar sight: a white 8\u00bd by 11 inch sheet of printer paper with the clear message: \u201cMASKS ARE REQUIRED FOR ALL CUSTOMERS. THANK YOU.\u201d Corporatized, sleek, with rounded graphic edges; designed by someone with many years of experience of Adobe Illustrator. In short \u2013 a sign designed far, far away from Sunset Beach, relaying a policy made far, far away from Sunset Beach. I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes. I put on my mask and walked inside the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dollar General, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target. We like shopping at these places for obvious reasons. Convenience, reliability, familiarity, expedience. But like a brand-new car or an actively managed investment fund, enormous community problems hide behind their obvious benefits. Inside the Dollar General I felt a recurring, grating, irritating question resurface: \u2018when,\u2019 I wondered to myself, \u2018will we get these big box stores out of here?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policymakers in small towns in America are about to enter an economic crossroads. In short, over three decades, automation, labor costs abroad, and technology have cost small town jobs. Making things worse, some evidence<\/a> shows that some companies now benefit from incorporating in population centers instead of as it once was \u2013 heterogenous mixtures of new companies populating the country because their founders happened to live there. So, we have small towns that got smaller, where jobs dried up, and where resources have dwindled, and we\u2019re not sure which firms can return. Just like mother nature creates trees in an abandoned field, capitalism too abhors a vacuum\u2013 so large corporations able to buoy rural brick and mortar stores like dollar general<\/a> and the largest fast food chains opened up shop<\/a> as locally owned businesses shuttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this, of course, has happened in the context of the largest corporations growing larger, with more and more borrowing power. In fact, even rare growing rural towns experienced the creep of large multinational corporations \u2013 look no further than Middletown, Delaware. I grew up in Middletown. Between 2000 and 2010, Middletown\u2019s population began to explode from less than 5,000 to over 20,000 today. When other rural towns shrank, why did Middletown grow? Mostly because Middletown is just barely ahead of other town\u2019s futures. We didn\u2019t need rural broadband and flexible work in order to grow; we just needed our cars. You can feasibly commute to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Wilmington from Middletown. Land is cheap, farmers are selling, and in a world of \u201cdrive \u2018til you qualify<\/a>\u201d mortgages, Middletown is an epicenter for a rural rebirth on the east coast. But almost all new businesses in Middletown aren\u2019t mom and pop shops \u2013 these are big box chains arranged in hellish, disjointed parking lots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a long time, after what I had seen in Middletown, I thought that the hope of locally owned businesses thriving in rural towns had faded permanently because most people didn\u2019t want to move to a place that looks like my hometown. But then the pandemic happened. People discovered that they don\u2019t all want to live in New York, Wilmington Delaware, or Charlotte North Carolina \u2013 at least some want to live in Middletown, or somewhere much smaller. And when they inevitably move and rural broadband supports their modern work environments, rural towns everywhere will have to ask themselves: how do we want to manage our growth? Middletown is conducting a natural experiment on this topic right now, accidentally a few years ahead of everyone else. If other towns develop as Middletown is developing, small businesses and local economic control don\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are interested in local businesses run locally, with our communities\u2019 needs in mind, we need to take our own steps in our personal lives and our municipal governments to live that way every day. It\u2019s much harder to undo a big box economy than to prevent it. The longer our communities wait to act, the more they cede control to predatory multinational companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the public who live in small towns should take steps to make sure that we prioritize small businesses in our town. We can vote with the almighty dollar. Where local businesses are available, we should spend there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, the public should push for zoning or development board representation for small businesses \u2013 and then change the zoning code. Large, multinational corporations are very appealing to development organizations that are not small business minded. Ken Branner, mayor of Middletown, famously<\/a> said that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t mess around and doesn\u2019t say no\u201d when a company comes calling. If the town leadership rubber stamps all business proposals, the largest corporations will almost surely outcompete the smallest ones. Municipal leadership must take an active role in saying \u201cno\u201d to businesses that the leadership and the public perceive will only hurt the town in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the strongest argument against regulating multinational corporations showing up in small towns is simple: in rural America in 2023, any business is good business. But this is not the correct way to frame rural rebirth in the United States. Accepting large, dominating, multinational corporations today positions a small town poorly for the future. In Middletown, Amazon opened a \u201cfulfillment center\u201d in 2015. The warehouse promised steady jobs and a wave of prosperity for the town. The jobs are steady and they do pay, but based on discussion with friends and family, it is soul-sucking, disposable work. Don\u2019t take my word for it: ask the Amazon Labor Union that defied expectations<\/a> to unionize a massive factory in New York, fighting for better working conditions. Letting Amazon come to town in exchange for work is a Faustian bargain \u2013 and it assumes that someone more responsible will not show up instead. If Amazon wants to incorporate in your town, a better business will, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But forget the terrible jobs that big box outlets bring \u2013 they will squeeze out smaller companies when they come calling to your town. Look no further than Middletown, Delaware, where Lowes, Home Depot, and Wal Mart replaced<\/a> the hardware store, a cherished local business at the center of the town\u2019s main street, run by a fantastic local family since 1860.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making things worse, large multinational corporations are not interested in the health and well-being of your town. Any urban planner, real estate expert, or public health expert will tell you: regardless of a community\u2019s size, developers must be told how to develop \u2013 not asked. When towns and counties engage in land sales to the highest bidder, without strict regulation, you can be sure that your town\u2019s health and safety won\u2019t be at the top of the developer\u2019s priority list. Where will the sidewalks be? Are all these fast-food joints healthy for people? Will development be restricted to adjacent lots, connected to an existing town center? Will parking be centralized? Will there be mixed use development, with residential spaces above or close to retail outlets? How will people with disabilities access these services? Will any of the new development be accessible for families who can\u2019t afford a car?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the Sunset Beach Dollar General, I seethed, powerless, through my mask. In the end this is the major problem with large multinationals in rural communities: messing with people\u2019s lives without contact. The Dollar General didn\u2019t care about covid epidemiology in Brunswick County. It just told me I have to wear a mask regardless. Wal Mart didn\u2019t care about whether the parking lot is accessible to people walking from Middletown center. Built the store regardless. I wished that Sunset Beach had a different place for me to shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It might surprise you to know that I am a lifelong progressive Democrat. But it shouldn\u2019t surprise you. Throw out your preconceived notions about who might agree on the rural growth we are about to experience in the United States. Anyone can agree that a local business \u2013 responsive to its customers, integrated into its community, providing corporate citizenship, governed locally, is better than a cold, dead, multinational outlet. Local legislative and executive branches need the public support, the policy tools, and the guts to regulate new development and advantage local businesses to make them viable. Zoning boards, municipal governments, county governments, and even some state governments should apply a heavy hand. And if they don\u2019t? Well, have you considered running for something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guest Post – Dr. Ryan Koski-Vacirca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “We drive up and down the gruesome, tragic suburban boulevards of commerce, and we’re overwhelmed at the fantastic, awesome, stupefying ugliness of absolutely everything in sight — the fry pits, the big-box stores … the lube joints, the carpet warehouses … the uproar of signs, the highway itself — clogged Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity-humility"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paisanosviewoftheworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}