Endangered Places
by Jay Parini, poet, novelist and biographer who teaches at
Middlebury College and lives in Weybridge, Vermont.
In case you haven't
followed the story so far: The National Trust for Historic
Preservation recently put our state on the endangered species
list. Their reason was this: "behemoth stores" like
Wal-Mart. This Wal-Mart would occupy 146,000 square feet of
commercial space in what is now open country two miles north of
St. Albans. Governor Jim Douglas was behind this move, urging the
superstore to consider this site, apparently convinced that
heavily discounted products and low-paying sales jobs are good for
us all - despite the larger impact of superstores on the
communities that attempt to absorb them.
Was the Preservation Trust being
alarmist? Did they simply want to roll back the clock, trying to
keep Vermont in the 19th century - a picturesque place, full of
pretty small towns and idyllic farmland, green woods and rolling
fields? Isn't the business of America really business after all?
Let me talk personally now. I
grew up in a fairly small, well-integrated community - West
Scranton, in northeastern Pennsylvania. There was a family-run
grocery store across the street from our house, and that's where
we bought most of our food. On Main Avenue, about ten minutes on
foot from our front door, you could buy almost anything you
needed: baby shoes and shovels, typewriters and radios, bow-ties
and dresses. My dentist had an office there, as did my regular
physician, who had treated my parents and grandparents before me.
One could get a uniquely good hot dog with chili sauce at the
Liberty Lunch on Main Avenue - the sauce was a special recipe,
long held secret by the family that owned the joint. There were
also half a dozen funeral homes on the avenue, making this a kind
of cradle to grave marketplace, in a thriving community.
Then the malls opened - three
miles north of West Scranton. A couple of hayfields were
blacktopped over. Discount shoes, dresses, bow-ties and shovels -
you name it - became available. The local residents, my parents
included, cheered. They liked the deep discounts and the easy
parking.
But fifty years later, West
Scranton, in Pennsylvania, is the municipal equivalent of a
graveyard. The place looks like a war zone. Empty brick buildings,
boarded up store fronts, broken windows. The funeral parlors are
all that are left, though a few tattoo parlors have sprung up,
catering to the handful of young people who haven't flown the
coop. The hot dog diner is gone, but a McDonald's is not too far
away.
When you kill Main Street, the
commercial heart of village life, you kill the community that it
serves. Young people move away, and the buildings fall into
disrepair.
This is a big price to pay for a
slightly cheaper TV set, for a $10 pair of jeans, or for a cheap
set of luggage that your children will almost certainly need as
they prepare to leave home for good, looking for better work, for
a better way of life.
© Copyright 2004, Vermont
Public Radio & Jay Parini
Vermont Public Radio commentary |
