The Contraction of Small Towns

The complaint and observation is global.

Small towns everywhere are dying as capital spools up to create ever-larger factories designed to make and ship more and more goods farther and farther away, as small farms fall to increased mechanization and distribution efficiency, and as television and automobiles show people more opportunities and more paths to escape.

Small town shops are falling to big box retailers, Amazon, and other on-line retailers and distributors, while increased wealth has driven an increase in holiday home Airbnbs.

Meanwhile, international competition, television, improved education, and the Internet have driven the spread of English as a global language, and the rapid decline in local or regional languages.

The phenomenon can be seen in Tuscany and rural Algeria, in Chiapas and Wales, in Kansas and Korea.

And the result?  A lot of nostalgia bemoaning change, increased suspicion of “foreigners,” and a general anger that cultural totems are slipping away as the world is becoming more and more homogenized.

Which reminds me of the time Tom Bradbury wrote: 

“The most perfect thing I have ever seen just happened on the replacement train bus service between Newport and Cwmbran: White man sat in front of a mother and her son. Mother was wearing a niqab. After about 5 minutes of the mother talking to her son in another language the man, for whatever reason, feels the need to tell the woman ‘When you're in the UK you should really be speaking English.’ At which point, an old woman in front of him turns around and says, ‘She's in Wales, and she’s speaking Welsh.’”