Paradigm shifts in business and technology, are only a part of why small-town America, may be on its way to fewer and farther between. People prefer the city....people prefer the suburbs. I drove through many, many towns, that conjured up an image of ashes, slowly growing long at the end of a cigarette, just waiting for someone to put it out. Weird analogy that, and I've never been a smoker, but I think the description is apt.
Drive through six states (or, was it seven) year after year, and you see it all. Hundreds of thousands of miles (thank goodness for company cars), and if you're not in a city or larger town, it's all, eerily the same. I loved working in Chicago and other major cities, but my favorite anywhere...small town America.
Driving south from Chicago in early mornings, took me through sleepy, quiet towns, that seemed only to reach "groggy" at best, when fully awake. There was no hustle...there was no bustle. Vacant and forlorn would be my description, if asked to describe business districts. It's a sad, slow decline, that seems to be accelerating, if one looks with open eyes. Compare population statistics over the decades, and there it is.
Driving south from Chicago in early mornings, took me through sleepy, quiet towns, that seemed only to reach "groggy" at best, when fully awake. There was no hustle...there was no bustle. Vacant and forlorn would be my description, if asked to describe business districts. It's a sad, slow decline, that seems to be accelerating, if one looks with open eyes. Compare population statistics over the decades, and there it is.
A link to a video of Cairo, IL. Since this video was filmed, I've heard the town has made some progress. IL was in my territory, but not as far south as Cairo. I've never been there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJW8lOzJJPE&t=4s
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