The 90s were shit politically and socially. 1996 was when welfare was destroyed. Rodney king. Desert storm. “Colorblind” racial awareness. “Don’t say gay”. Etc.
But when I think of that era, when I was in middle school and starting high school, before the walmart came to my smallish town where I grew up and wrecked the economy, things were genuinely and observably different.
It’s basically concurring what you say. We would walk home after school and stop by neighborhood shops, owned by people who lived in the community, and were amongst our homes. Suburbia track homes didn’t exist yet so the idea of a small store in your neighborhood wasn’t so foreign even though it was a small town and not a city. It was probably about 4-5 miles between the furthest of my friends houses and we would convene at a central friends house or a park or something. And like you said because the shops were all run by people in the community they got to know us. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t a poor kid, I was solidly middle class, but there would still be shop owners that would throw me a free drink or whatever every once and a while because I stopped by every day after school
When I was in high school walmart came to town (probably like 2001?). People protested in town hall meetings and a ton of dissent was raised but it was allowed anyway. Looking back as an adult im betting walmart just paid off the council members or whatever. They built a fucking huge one and disrupted the town for literal years. It was a small town with an actual “main street” and the construction closed this for years which starved a ton of the local businesses and closed off a bunch before it even opened (again looking back as an adult this was probably a tactic, walmart had the resources to get that building up in like 6 months and it took like 4-5 years).
By the time it opened I was at college. It quickly started closing other local businesses. Every summer I’d go back and the town would be a bit more dead. By the time I graduated basically every shop I had gone to was closed, replaced by walmart and a few other big chains that had moved in like home depot and autozone, putting everything else out of its misery. At this point the development of suburbia track homes had been ongoing as well so you’d drive past these monstrosities of the same fucking house copy pasted 800 times with nothing to do for miles.
It’s been like 15 years since then and the last time I went back it was just so depressing. There’s nothing to do there now. The only stuff is bars and restaurants. The only non conglomerate stores are weird shit like spirit Halloween, hair salons, yoga studios, and there was actually a trump memorabilia store where my favorite hangout used to be which broke my heart
I do mental health stuff and when I work with people who are under like 20 years old I feel so bad because they just never got to experience that. Their version of america has entirely been overtaken by corporate overlords. It’s crazy bc it wasn’t always like this. Like there were always corporate overlords, in the 80s and 90s they were telecoms (and they were actually declared monopolies and broken up! Only to eventually reform into basically the same monopolies 20 years later) and the emergence of big tech (the lack of any kind of regulation on microsoft in the 90s is something we are paying dearly for now). But when I work with a teenager who lives in one of those suburbia environments and struggles to make meaningful social connections because they can’t hang out with people unless their parents drive them around I feel awful for them. Utter failure on so many levels. Civil planning, zoning, regulatory, economic, etc.
The idea of actually being able to start a retail business and have a 3rd place in your community is basically unheard of now. Even service businesses (like repair shops) are basically extinct outside of auto repair because tech and appliance manufacturers have conditioned us to accept that everything is disposable even if it’s like 2 grand and our regulatory bodies are worthless. You can’t build anything anymore, you can only slave for the bezos/walton empire
This is 100% it for me
The 90s were shit politically and socially. 1996 was when welfare was destroyed. Rodney king. Desert storm. “Colorblind” racial awareness. “Don’t say gay”. Etc.
But when I think of that era, when I was in middle school and starting high school, before the walmart came to my smallish town where I grew up and wrecked the economy, things were genuinely and observably different.
It’s basically concurring what you say. We would walk home after school and stop by neighborhood shops, owned by people who lived in the community, and were amongst our homes. Suburbia track homes didn’t exist yet so the idea of a small store in your neighborhood wasn’t so foreign even though it was a small town and not a city. It was probably about 4-5 miles between the furthest of my friends houses and we would convene at a central friends house or a park or something. And like you said because the shops were all run by people in the community they got to know us. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t a poor kid, I was solidly middle class, but there would still be shop owners that would throw me a free drink or whatever every once and a while because I stopped by every day after school
When I was in high school walmart came to town (probably like 2001?). People protested in town hall meetings and a ton of dissent was raised but it was allowed anyway. Looking back as an adult im betting walmart just paid off the council members or whatever. They built a fucking huge one and disrupted the town for literal years. It was a small town with an actual “main street” and the construction closed this for years which starved a ton of the local businesses and closed off a bunch before it even opened (again looking back as an adult this was probably a tactic, walmart had the resources to get that building up in like 6 months and it took like 4-5 years).
By the time it opened I was at college. It quickly started closing other local businesses. Every summer I’d go back and the town would be a bit more dead. By the time I graduated basically every shop I had gone to was closed, replaced by walmart and a few other big chains that had moved in like home depot and autozone, putting everything else out of its misery. At this point the development of suburbia track homes had been ongoing as well so you’d drive past these monstrosities of the same fucking house copy pasted 800 times with nothing to do for miles.
It’s been like 15 years since then and the last time I went back it was just so depressing. There’s nothing to do there now. The only stuff is bars and restaurants. The only non conglomerate stores are weird shit like spirit Halloween, hair salons, yoga studios, and there was actually a trump memorabilia store where my favorite hangout used to be which broke my heart
I do mental health stuff and when I work with people who are under like 20 years old I feel so bad because they just never got to experience that. Their version of america has entirely been overtaken by corporate overlords. It’s crazy bc it wasn’t always like this. Like there were always corporate overlords, in the 80s and 90s they were telecoms (and they were actually declared monopolies and broken up! Only to eventually reform into basically the same monopolies 20 years later) and the emergence of big tech (the lack of any kind of regulation on microsoft in the 90s is something we are paying dearly for now). But when I work with a teenager who lives in one of those suburbia environments and struggles to make meaningful social connections because they can’t hang out with people unless their parents drive them around I feel awful for them. Utter failure on so many levels. Civil planning, zoning, regulatory, economic, etc.
The idea of actually being able to start a retail business and have a 3rd place in your community is basically unheard of now. Even service businesses (like repair shops) are basically extinct outside of auto repair because tech and appliance manufacturers have conditioned us to accept that everything is disposable even if it’s like 2 grand and our regulatory bodies are worthless. You can’t build anything anymore, you can only slave for the bezos/walton empire