(no subject)
Nov. 24th, 2003 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
I doubt most folks have any idea what it was like trying to buy stuff in a small town in the old days. Where I grew up you'd walk to Atkins Hardware for your tools. Atkins Furniture was upstairs. Atkins Men's and Women's Apparel was across the street. And so on, until in the end your bereaved survivors would take you to Atkins Funeral Home.
Although the clothing store didn't call themselves a shoe store they had the only ones in town. Selection was excerable. They never had more than one pair of shoes in my size. It wasn't until years later I discovered that shoes were availiable in WIDE. Or that it shoes weren't SUPPOSED to hurt.
Maybe those small town clothing stores would have improved in time. But it's too late for them now. We have Wal-Mart. Sad thing is, Wal-Mart, bad as it may be, gives better service and selection than you ever got in my small towns in the old days. That's why they succeed, after all.
I've seen them vilified (chiefly by people who didn't grow up in small towns, I think) for destroying the small-town downtown districts. Didn't happen here. Downtown is healthy because it's quaint and the tourists spend their money down there. You can get all the fudge and sporting goods and souvenirs you want. Just don't try to buy clothes, unless you want ski boots or hunting coats.
OK, assuming for a moment I grant Wal-Mart is the great evil-- and frankly, I'm not that fond of them, I go to them because I must-- what are your alternatives? You can go to Kohl's, another national box store on a huge parking lot that used to be a stand of red pines, about three miles east of town. Or you can go to one of the locally owned box stores. Or one of the supermarkets which abandoned downtown decades ago, also box stores. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Ironic, isn't it? In my youth I could walk downtown for all my goods, but there was nothing worth having when I got there. Now we can get most of the stuff we need, but you have to drive all over for it.
Most of the newer big cities are even worse. San Jose, for example; just TRY walking anywhere there. It's worse than here, really. So why does here feel worse? I think it's the tantalizing knowledge that the distances here are so SMALL. It's only two miles, three, four at the most, to anything. You could walk it. You could bike it easily. But across that area there are few sidewalks, and no bike paths. You'd have to walk or ride on the shoulder of the main road, and some blue-haired thousand-year-old Florida lady in a Buick would get you, sure as hell.
I hate it. I love cars, but I hate needing one.
Of course, give them credit, the city government here wants to make the town nicer than the usual Northern Michigan four-corners with gas station and supermarket... with decor chiefly remarkable for the large numbers of forlorn telephone poles, their wires moaning sadly in the arctic breezes.
They've started building some nice sidewalks and bike paths here and there. One of the latest is out by the airport. There's a federally funded light industrial park going in out there, and perhaps as part of the Federal specifications, they built a very nice bike path from this development, then down the length of the airport, all the way to Dickerson Road.
Where it ends. The nearest OTHER sidewalk or bike parth is a mile east. Across the freeway. There's no way to get across the freeway.
We have a bike path, but you have to drive to get there. I'm trying to remain calm about this, but it isn't easy.
Oh well. It shows people are thinking in that general direction anyway. We've taken our first steps, built our first paths. Can a network of paths, or even some land use planning to cluster the box stores within walking distance of town, be far behind?
Well, yes, actually.
It can be far behind. Very far behind.
Although the clothing store didn't call themselves a shoe store they had the only ones in town. Selection was excerable. They never had more than one pair of shoes in my size. It wasn't until years later I discovered that shoes were availiable in WIDE. Or that it shoes weren't SUPPOSED to hurt.
Maybe those small town clothing stores would have improved in time. But it's too late for them now. We have Wal-Mart. Sad thing is, Wal-Mart, bad as it may be, gives better service and selection than you ever got in my small towns in the old days. That's why they succeed, after all.
I've seen them vilified (chiefly by people who didn't grow up in small towns, I think) for destroying the small-town downtown districts. Didn't happen here. Downtown is healthy because it's quaint and the tourists spend their money down there. You can get all the fudge and sporting goods and souvenirs you want. Just don't try to buy clothes, unless you want ski boots or hunting coats.
OK, assuming for a moment I grant Wal-Mart is the great evil-- and frankly, I'm not that fond of them, I go to them because I must-- what are your alternatives? You can go to Kohl's, another national box store on a huge parking lot that used to be a stand of red pines, about three miles east of town. Or you can go to one of the locally owned box stores. Or one of the supermarkets which abandoned downtown decades ago, also box stores. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Ironic, isn't it? In my youth I could walk downtown for all my goods, but there was nothing worth having when I got there. Now we can get most of the stuff we need, but you have to drive all over for it.
Most of the newer big cities are even worse. San Jose, for example; just TRY walking anywhere there. It's worse than here, really. So why does here feel worse? I think it's the tantalizing knowledge that the distances here are so SMALL. It's only two miles, three, four at the most, to anything. You could walk it. You could bike it easily. But across that area there are few sidewalks, and no bike paths. You'd have to walk or ride on the shoulder of the main road, and some blue-haired thousand-year-old Florida lady in a Buick would get you, sure as hell.
I hate it. I love cars, but I hate needing one.
Of course, give them credit, the city government here wants to make the town nicer than the usual Northern Michigan four-corners with gas station and supermarket... with decor chiefly remarkable for the large numbers of forlorn telephone poles, their wires moaning sadly in the arctic breezes.
They've started building some nice sidewalks and bike paths here and there. One of the latest is out by the airport. There's a federally funded light industrial park going in out there, and perhaps as part of the Federal specifications, they built a very nice bike path from this development, then down the length of the airport, all the way to Dickerson Road.
Where it ends. The nearest OTHER sidewalk or bike parth is a mile east. Across the freeway. There's no way to get across the freeway.
We have a bike path, but you have to drive to get there. I'm trying to remain calm about this, but it isn't easy.
Oh well. It shows people are thinking in that general direction anyway. We've taken our first steps, built our first paths. Can a network of paths, or even some land use planning to cluster the box stores within walking distance of town, be far behind?
Well, yes, actually.
It can be far behind. Very far behind.
