Rowland Ramble -

For everyone its different.  Early on I wrote about square goldfish.  Its the idea that a fish can grow to fit the environment it lives in.  It was the thought that it might become square if placed in an aquarium and allowed to think that the tank was bigger than it really was. 
I started feeling like I had outgrown my environment at home.  Not the house but the town.  It’s limited in what it has to offer unless you are raising a family there.  It has the feel of a somewhat small town, even though it’s losing that feeling and it can be difficult to get to make long term connections because people don’t stay too long in one place.  It’s a military town. 
It has become commercialized to the point that it’s only saving grace that makes it different is the location on the map and the mountians and water that surround it.
There used to be a fair amount of businesses that were not owned by corporations and you knew who the business owners were.  Now it’s so much like any other town on the map with most of the typical corporate owned services that the uniqueness in that aspect is gone. 
There is that point were a younger town starts off with the basics.  Corner grocery store, a local greasy spoon, a gas station or two, a local hardware store, a feed store for agriculture needs and maybe a few other offerings.  The feed stores are the last to go as the land gets eventually consumed and the agricultural need fades away.  When the feed store goes, you know it’s over.  My town still has one and they seem to be doing well. 
That point where a small town becomes a city can be really good or really bad.  The growth should have some form of managed growth or it can become an out of control monster.  In my town, the local hardware store was bought out, taken over by a big box corporation as they moved into the original big  building.  They then vacated that building and built a bigger new store just one mile down the road.  Now the old building just sits vacant for eight or nine years now and it’s in decay.
Next to it is a similar building that had a grocery store in it but the roof caved in during a snow storm.  Another crappy building in decay.  These are reminders of yesteryear when the town was a little smaller and thrived on small business.  Now the money spent in the town goes to corporations outside the town and little comes back.  It’s no wonder why the place seems to be getting the life sucked out of it.  I didn’t understand that way of thinking before.
The big corporations are only concerned about keeping the shareholders happy and the idea of giving back (financially) to any community that has been supporting the corporation goes against the very idea of what it takes to keep the shareholders happy with profitable gains.
This brings me to a thought about small and medium sized towns vs big cities.  Small towns aren’t often inhabited by big business savvy citizens who are well connected and versed in managing big business and work in the small town.  They are going to go where they can do what they do best…into the city.
This is where a bit of “us vs them” comes into play.
My town had a mayor who had come from the city and brought ideas on how to grow the town into something of a place where larger business could have moved there and considered it home rather than just a place to drop in another store and suck more cash out of the town.  The small minded views of the locals killed that.  They also killed a NASCAR racetrack deal.  A rather foolish move as it would have really made the town a destination spot and it would have brought money into the town.  It would have…but the us vs them mentality kept my town from growing just a bit. 
I truly hope things have improved as I now go back.