Did American Towns Lose Their Individuality?

When i was a kid you can see the changes start. some would argue they started long before the late 70s and early 80s. there is no question that now every town in america with a population of several thousand can all be described in the same way.
go down town there is a walmart, a family dollar (or similar dollar store) a McDonalds, (and 3 to 7 other fast food places) a target, (sears is just starting to disappear now) a jiffy lube, one of each type of car manufactures dealership, and a chilies or ruby tuesdays. (or similar non fast food restaurant, actually i think tgifriday and applebees are more popular)

i am not saying the mom and pop places arent there, just that they used to define a town and now they seem to be hidden in it.

 

The entire US is now one huge franchise and you can even buy American flags covered in logos from Walmart, McDonald's, etc. People demanded brand name items like "Dole" bananas and "Clorox" bleach as though putting a brand name on something made it better or there is any actual difference between one kind of bleach and another. Its the herd mentality that even rules our politics and you can buy "Made in America" brand clothing at Walmart that's actually made in China.

 

People want the good things that makes a town but their consumer habits change it. At least as important for losing their identity/individuality is of course when a town came to be for specific purposes like a certain kind of industry, and that industry has faded. People have less to spend, go to the cheaper shops, which are usually the franchises and chain stores.

 

No mention of Starbucks?

 

Aren't they only in the (bigger) cities? Not sure btw! Or is the word town also used for a (smaller perhaps) city? Enlighten me!

 

Actually in California, probably most of the US, the wealthier cities/towns have homogenous shopping centers too.

 

Starbucks are all over, particularly in shopping areas such as the op is describing.

 

Man that sucks. I expected them to mainly be in the most profitable places (like the bigger/busiest city centres). I don't even get how they can get by in smaller cities, esp. the ones where unemployment is higher.

 

Granted they have relatively steep prices for most their beverages but other than that, I'm not sure what your impression of them is. They usually aren't ornate facilities, alot of them are like probably 1/3 of the size of a standard Mcdonalds.

 

I usually think of what you described as being more in the suburbs. My city, the actual city, is full of locally owned restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. There are a few higher end chains like Anthropologie and Brooks Brothers, there's one CVS, maybe 2 or 3 out of over a hundred restaurants are national chains

Now if you drive outside the city in.any direction you do eventually run into a suburban hellhole filled with wal marts, starbucks, etc

 

Lol, I'm in the epicenter of a hellhole

Just thinking about it now, it's kinda sad, I'm so inundated with the homogenous layout, that like I'm not sure I'd even trust a town or city that was all locally owned shops.

Well I suppose some of that may have to do with the locally owned shops I work and live around are all in Mandarin or Farsi.

 

Buying food there could be deadly, but you also could be missing out tremendously! :-D (you have to find out which ones are the good ones. I'm sure there's one or 2)

 

Oh yah, I've had some food, some of it is really quality! But not much of it feels much like "home" or "my city" if that makes sense.

 

Maybe because they weren't there earlier or in your youth/hometown? I've grown up with chinese restaurants in my birth town, which is closer to a village than a city. They had chinese signs and the name of the restaurant is also commonly in chinese. The menu of course is not in chinese or they would go bankrupt All chinese people who worked there spoke with a heavily chinese accent and some not even dutch at all. Now a lot of those chinese restaurants are struggling (they were so popular at one point this was ought to happen sooner or later, because every town of some importance got one), because sushi and other kind of food and trendy resturants have taken over. It almost feels like some kind of national loss to me to see all those restaurants being mainly empty every evening But this might also be because I love babi bangang more than sushi

 

I know what you mean. While San Rafael wasn't a small town by national standards, it was small for California. I used to go to a corner book store on 4th street near the Rafael theater (it's still there thankfully) to buy my Freak Brothers comics. It's a Starbuck's now. Living as I do now, in the shadow of Atlanta, the small towns are exactly as you say, wall to wall national chains run by surly locals who are clearly not happy because they have no stake in what used to be their home town.

The only way to find small town charm of any sort around here seems to be closely tied to antique shopping. Which is fine until the humidity peaks and all the shops stink like mold and little old lady, regardless of who is running them. In Florida my wife and I used to do weekends in Mt. Dora, a craft and antique congregation with a side of biker shops and cafes with too little seating and very slow service. Or we'd head across the river to Cassadaga so she could get her psychic/Voodoo fix.

I blame Wal-Mart primarily. Sam Walton used to run a small chain of Ben Franklin stores in small towns. It was kind of a dollar store with an emphasis on craft supplies. But the small towns made a habit of coming up with new and creative ways to bilk his stores. Everything from enhanced water bills to weird operating fees. Other chain stores suffered the same problems, but Walton's stores had an already marginal profit structure. In his own words he described Wal-Mart as his personal revenge on the small towns that has ruined his franchise dreams.

What I don't think he counted on was every other corporation in the nation taking notice and following his business model to dethrone small town cronies and score a fast buck, then pull out fast when the turnips could no longer be squeezed. Now the country is dotted with the carcasses of failed chain locations for everything from shoes to square fish "restaurants". The only ones that seem to be sustained are in bedroom communities close to a larger "real" city. Atlanta is ringed by them. But some parts within the circle are trying to be friendly to small businesses. There's a vegan bakery in Decatur called Dulce Vegan that's freakin wonderful. The whole neighborhood has turned around in the last decade.

Of course there are still some of the stereotypical small towns around here as well. The kind where people call me a "Yankee" when they hear my voice. There's nothing "charming" about xenophobia. Oh well.

 

I doubt either of the cities were as Chinese/Persian heavy even 10 years ago.

 

there is only two of them on the entire delmarva peninsula outside of the beachfront and bayside areas so it just slipped my mind. when i lived in jersey there was none around either.
that just makes it funnier when i hear about them opening up one across the street from another in other states.

 

I can't really wrap my head around that. Their prevalency around here makes Walmarts look scarce by comparison

 

not sure about this at all. when i think of big cities i think nyc philly and dc. those are just the cities i visit most often. and they are definitely more prone to have smaller ownerships. but they all have all the big franchises except for big box department stores (i am guessing theft is the main reason but dont know for sure)
i dont travel in smaller big cities as much, like Charlotte, Toledo, and Tulsa.

i did say more than several thousand but should have maybe...said less than a half a million

 

my niece lives in the town i grew up in...she works in a starbucks. so i asked her "oh where is there a starbucks around here?" she said by the mall....that is a 25 minute drive and the closest one.