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| Photos by Salt Water New England |
Towns change. They grow. They add amenities. Traffic lights. New parking and traffic patterns. New stores. Privately owned open fields may be bought and turned into permanently open spaces.
Sometimes there are wonderful changes, sometimes less than wonderful changes.
So, and here is the question, what changes in a small town constitute good changes, from your experience? What are signs that the town has maintained its essence but also heading in a good direction?
I grew up in Lincoln and Concord, Massachusetts. Both of those towns have made considerable efforts to fend off rapid change due to sprawl, opportunities for tourism, etc. Each retains the character and traditions of appearance and offerings (public places, schools, town facilities and so on) that they had when I grew up there in the 1950s. We now live in a coastal Maine town which has changed quite a bit due to tourism and an influx of moneyed retirees. All of the locations are expensive for middle class earners as far as affording homes and paying property taxes are concerned. The Massachusetts towns can support excellent schools because inhabitants for the most part are employed in high paying positions around Boston and have the financial security to enlarge their families. In the coastal town there aren't as many opportunities for high pay and the schools suffer as enrollment declines due to the uncertainty of families having any or more children.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful question and one that the town in which I reside part of the year is grappling.
ReplyDeleteWe're a town of 246 +/- in rural GA. Tons of history. A US ambassador and state supreme court justice as well as governor as well as several noted attorneys. (GA settled from the coast westward and this was a wealthy agricultural community back in the day with many grand houses still extant.)
Anyway, what constitutes community, I would opine are communication between government and the public, open/public decision making, and solid laws/statutes protecting property owners rights as well as the rights of the community. Furthermore, a library, USPS, a bank, a grocery store, and most definitely a hardware store. It is my opinion these are the basics.
OK I've rambled enough. Cheers.
The rural Georgia town that I live in may not be located too far from yours but in recent years it has been overrun by Metro Atlanta sprawl and it has definitely NOT been a change for the better.
DeletePlease add to the list of basics a coffee shop and a liquor store. Thank you.
DeleteAffordable housing, especially in areas served by good schools. We want everyone in the next generation to grow up with the benefits of a sound education. We want the lower income earners that are essential to making our world work to be able to live near their jobs. Following a destructive hurricane, HUD financed some low income housing that really blends with the character of the historic homes nearby. Also, any missing amenities, certainly including coffee shops and liquor stores but also accessible play spaces, libraries, and good coverage of medical providers, EMS, and fire stations. Addressing blighted structures is also beneficial.
ReplyDeleteAmen to ALL of this! Housing the unhoused solves so many problems and saves so much money.
DeleteAs far as I can see in my small town, the only good change is no change at all. I lament the "growth" of my hometown. The improvements in our library is nice, but not in comparison to the dozens of condo apartments that sully the waterfront.
ReplyDeleteI think new residents who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are able to buy and restore older buildings and transform them into community places (bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, inns, etc) provide an enormous benefit to the whole town.
ReplyDeleteOur little town in no’west Conn has changed somewhat since the pandemic: A number of what were weekend homes are now occupied by families with children, thereby raising school enrollment, good. Cars with out of state license plates continue to ignore speed limits, bad. Some new arrivals are contributing their time and talent to local boards and service organizations, good. One or two unnecessary retail locations have opened and will predictably close when the post pandemic glow dims, bad. Most of the new arrivals brought with them their “city game face.” They stare straight ahead when they pass by you in the village center and must be prompted to exchange greetings, bad.
ReplyDeleteSometime to much of a good thing, is just that!
ReplyDeleteNew England towns can change but as long as there are old Volvos and Saabs being driven…tradition remains!:) Love those pictures, that 760 white wagon brings back unique memories.
ReplyDeleteSmall towns in Texas are shrinking because, in part, of hospital and nursing home closures. These facilities are interdependent financially, but low Medicaid funding is killing both of them. When they close, heart attack victims are more than an hour from an emergency room and elderly family members are in homes 50 miles away. So I'd guess I'd say holding on to those two critically important institutions is another case of no change is good change.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree that Concord changes from since the 1950s. There are houses and condos shoved everywhere. The field across the street from the Alcott and Hawthorne houses is still a field, but you can't see it because there are big houses along Lexington Street blocking the view. The traffic is horrendous on Lexington Street. The quaint is still there, but you have to either look for it, imagine it or see old photographs.
ReplyDeleteTo Lincoln's credit, last I read, as I've been afraid to look, the town stopped condos being built near Walden Pond. The area there had the most magnificent smelling fresh air in the 1950s. That is all gone. The trailor park is gone. Instead, there's a visitor's center. That is a good change.
Along Route 2A acres of land are free of development for Minute Man State Park. Instead of putting houses there, and leaving the core of Concord open, there are fields of nothing. Minute Men would have a difficult time recognizing the area.
Changes. I think beautification is good, but not when it overwhelms a small space. In Vergennes, Vermont, smallest city in the state, bump outs were installed and landscaped along a main truck route through the city. They are well kept and attractive...in a space that didn't need them. Downtown looks more congested than ever. It has been since the 1990s a "study" has been going on for an alternate route. The land is there, but no construction or even a plan ready to go. Change needs common sense that fit the area.
The fact at the heart of this is a steadily growing population that needs to live somewhere and, because of affordability, has fewer options than those of us who are already established. Condos, apartments, new subdivisions are some of the more affordable ways of addressing those needs. If these newer residents cannot afford to live in decent housing in small towns, where would we have them go? The future cannot look like the past most of the time because the future we were going to create was not yet in being.
ReplyDeleteLive in an area that is going from rural to suburb. Have people from out of state and from metro areas moving in. The newcomers seem to be embracing the culture here. They exercise by walking the streets and take time to stop and have conversations. I think many moved here for the culture and are anxious to maintain it.
ReplyDelete1. Reliable high speed WiFi (inconspicous, if possible).
ReplyDelete2. Good new cafes and restaurants that compliment the old ones.
Good changes, some already noted:
ReplyDeleteMore sidewalks
More trees
More bike paths and racks
More 5ks and century rides
More farmers markets and produce stands
New independent Volvo mechanics
New independent cafes and bookstores
Restoration of all sorts - houses, schools, cars, lawns, boats, marinas, streetlights
Change that's both good and bad:
High speed Wi-Fi. Nice to have, but tends to bring in a work from home crowd from away. New people with new money are usually a problem.
Electric vehicle charging stations. Could be used to charge Volvos and Minis, but seem to mostly be occupied by Teslas.
Change that's bad:
We know it when we see it. Vinyl siding, traffic, nondenominational churches, building much of anything on green space, chain stores and restaurants, grocery stores built on the edge of town (I'm looking at you Price Chopper and Hannaford), ATVs, paving dirt roads, closing the local factory, pricing people out of the town where they grew up.
If there's a conflict between the good changes and affordability, that is also a bad change.
Denominations were once non too
DeleteMy hometown is now classified by the FBI as a major crystal methamphetamine distribution hub. Some of the less reputable people think that's progress, but Aunt Bea and Clara have had a devil of a time working that into a lyric good enough for Keevy Hazelton to use on his show.
ReplyDeleteMy lists above are a bit tongue in cheek, but small towns seem to unfortunately go one of two ways. Either they sprout meth labs or Porsches. I've seen and experienced enough of the former route not to fret the latter too much. Gentrification isn't automatically a dirty word, especially if the alternative is decay.
DeleteIt seems like a rare town that can manage to be a nice place for middle class people for a long time. College towns outside of the commuting radius of a major metro often manage to pull it off by producing a lot of solid employment for people committed to the town for the long haul.
What till the Cartel moves in.
DeleteAfter frequenting WVA I have come to relish VA Porsches
DeleteNondenominational churches spring up quickly. They seem a sad commentary on our society. We visited last year a mountain state. One somewhat isolated town had a population of 4,000. Believe me there were no suburbs. But there were 14, mostly nondenominational, churches. Are people that worried about the future? Will they look for solace in just anyone that promises them a better life?
ReplyDeleteHope springs, and some churches deliver on that promise
DeleteI should count myself fortunate, as the fact our subdivision backs up to the county owned space that is still country backwoods, with some houses on them. We don't have the noise of the city, can take a shortcut, and pop out in other areas less traveled that make all the difference.
ReplyDeletethe newer main roads might be a bit busier as we pop out of our shortcuts, but a shortcut to home is never sneered at.
We have main food chains on the main road now that we have always liked, though there are others that are owner owned we highly enjoy.
A very thought provoking post accompanied by interesting comments. I live in a small resort town in northwest Michigan along the shores of Lake Michigan. It used to be just about idyllic here, but now we're so overrun with summer tourists that we basically avoid the town from Memorial Day through Labor Day. A big part of our problem is the proliferation of short-term rentals. They've driven up real estate prices so much that most of the people employed in our tourist-based economy can't afford to live here. When absolute junk is $1,000,000+, it's no wonder that the bakery is having trouble finding people to put my croissants in the box for $15/hour. And, of course, the people staying in those short-term rentals seem to be a bunch of drunken louts from downstate, careening madly from one winery to the next. God, I miss the days when Leelanau County was a quiet place to live!
ReplyDeleteShort term rentals are more than a stateside plague. They afflict many tourist destinations, even “big” cities like Paris. They have priced Venetian families way out of their own neighborhoods. New York recently has clamped down on them.
ReplyDeleteA small town full of second home owners or with properties just rented to Airbnb tenants is no good.
ReplyDeleteA small town should have all its original amenities.
The arrival of asylum seekers is undesirable, though at least in some American states you have the right to bear arms.
Yes. But what is meant by “asylum seekers?” Those driven from their home countries by fear of life threatening situations,, such as those fleeing Syria? Or, people in search of a better life for themselves and their families, such as those endangering their lives to reach, what is to the poorest of the poor, still “the land of opportunity,” such as those fleeing Haiti? People will risk their lives to reach our shores to take a job cleaning bathrooms.
ReplyDeleteDriven? Fleeing danger? Please, the vast majority are just young single men looking for a free ride from Uncle Sam (look at the photos). Remember, a burglar is not a new house guest, and no idyllic small town will remain so when they show up unwanted.
DeleteIn Texas we have a lot of familiarity with asylum seekers. We have a very large immigrant population, largely from Central America and Mexico. It is nice that we already had a large Latino population, providing some supportive culture to people who have been going through harrowing experiences. The people I have met, worked with, and encountered who are either part of our established Latino culture or are recent immigrants have been good natured, kind, willing to work hard, and generally assets to our city. I ran our state agency that administered our affordable housing and poverty assistance programs. People who were just looking to live off the government certainly do exist, but I found them few and far between. I probably encountered proportionately more of them among people who were established citizens than I did among immigrants. We welcome diversity.
DeleteYes, but your experience was before when sanity ruled, but now we have an intentionally open border sponsored by the federal government. And guess whose jobs these hard-working newcomers will be taking? No, this massive invasion (in numbers never before seen) will destroy the entire fabric of our society if not halted soon.
DeleteMy family arrived here in NYC, walked off the boat, and simply wandered down the street into a new life. They were no more legal and no more entitled to be here than those come here today. There's no difference. That's what defines us as America.
DeleteThere were 9.6 million job openings in America last month and many of these had been open for several months. It doesn't look to me like immigrants are stealing anyone's jobs and a few more immigrants might help us get our food quicker in restaurants, shorten the wait time for home repairs (6 weeks in neck of Texas right now)and get our hotel rooms cleaner.
DeleteLive on the border, or within 30 minutes of it, live there daily non stop, acts of daily living, you will change your tune due to the personal truth of what happens to you day and in the dead of night. What doesn't directly affect and effect a person they pontificate upon. When your neighborhood is infested with waves of people trying to get in your house, take your car, the spread of disease, etc- you will change your tune. And no, the News does not cover this.
DeleteWe welcome hard workers in our corner of New England. It’s virtually impossible to find workers for restaurants, landscaping companies, etc.. A short time ago I asked a landscaper if all his employees were local. He said, “yes.” I asked “no Ecuadorians?” His response, “no, I wish we did have some.”
ReplyDeleteWe had our house re-roofed a couple years ago by a local, well-established roofing company. I was expecting that they would do the work themselves, but they "subbed out" the work to a contractor from downstate. Crew of 10, only 1 of whom spoke English. And you know what? They were magnificent. They worked like banshees from dawn to well past dusk on a steep roof in miserable conditions (beginning with clearing 2 feet of snow from the roof). No idea where they were from (or even if they were here legally), but I wish that same work ethic could be instilled in our American contractors. Most of the contractors we've had here spend half the time taking smoke breaks or texting somebody, so it was a treat to see workers really work. They got our job done in 4 days and did quality work. I gave each of them a sizable tip when they finished - they earned it!
DeleteOur baby sitter was with us for 12 years. She was separated from her three children for five years while she got on her feet in the USA. For those 5 years her son and daughters were taken care of in their native land by their grandmother. When the oldest child arrived in this country, at 12, he spoke not a word of English. By the time he was 27 he was college educated and doing well enough in the insurance business to have purchased a home in a solid middle class New York City suburb. Hard work and conservative family values paid off for Raul, and his two sisters, both college educated. They never lived off the dime and likely never will. They are not taking anyone’s job away except those who are unwilling to buckle down and work hard.
ReplyDeleteThe “young single men looking for a free ride” don’t make their way to our corner of New England either. Echoing above, we welcome those who are willing to mow lawns, stock grocery shelves, wash dishes, flip hamburgers, and do the early to rise farm labor in all kinds of weather. Many of these jobs were formally filled by young men, native born. Alas, it seems they now are more interested in staring at a screen and scrolling social media. Would that they “buckle down.”
ReplyDeleteIn CA in the 1980's undoc. workers were cheaper to pay and easy hire without workers rights nor benefits, thus shoving out the locals. Undoc workers would never complain nor report abuse either, nor spotty paychecks.
DeleteThat says more about greed and lack of regulation than it does about the immigrants. Maybe that’s one reason why CA is one strip mall after another.
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