The Future of Small Towns

Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia

THE FUTURE OF SMALL TOWNS

           Every day I look out over the small town of Kuah and wonder what the future of this place will be.  The first time I came to this island, I came here and a road along the beach was dirt. I stayed one night in a tiny cottage tucked under palm trees. A friend and I sat on the immaculate white sand beneath a gorgeous full moon. Four years later, the cottage was gone, replaced by a resort, the streets are paved and lined with many small shops and restaurants. Tourism came quickly to the island, peaking several years ago but now diminishing. The character of the place has changed -- as every taxi driver tells me --  it's still very lovely and now there's more places to go and things to see. What will the future bring? Right now, Langkawi is like Hawaii was when I first went there some thirty years ago. Will it too become overrun?

          A small forward-thinking group of citizens from my old hometown have set up a website (see Facebook) to ask, “What is the future of Sharon, Connecticut?” This little town was bustling during the American Revolution with hundreds of small businesses. The manufacturing increased with the iron and coal-mining industries of the 19^th century which polluted the valley air and stripped the hills of their virgin forests. Now all that raucous life has dissipated and the hills and valleys have over the past half-century have reverted to a restful peace and quiet. Only two hours from New York City in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, it still manages to be a 'Shangri-la'. I wonder about its future: how much longer will retain its character before disappearing into the mists like the proverbial 'Brigadoon?' 

              In recent months in Thailand, farmers from small towns in the northeast of the country donned red shirts, loaded their families and friends into pickup trucks, and drove into the city of Bangkok. They set up a camp right in the center of the city and slept on mats in the streets. They held the city hostage for two months, culminating in a battle with the military and police. Whether manipulated by a multimillionaire whose assets were being seized by the present government or not, the spokespersons for the farmers had a point to make: life in small towns and rural farms is difficult. Farmers work long hours but remain poor, some are hungry, homes are without water or electricity, educational opportunities are limited or non-existent. Their prospects for a better life are slim. They do not feel they have sufficient political clout to be able to make a difference using legal channels. Something has to be done – sadly, no 'red shirt' stated clearly what.

              Billions on the planet barely survive in small communities. In every country in the world, including the United States, the situations for poor people living in small towns are extreme. During the Beijing Olympics, China set a goal of supplying a basketball court and badminton tables to every small town in the country -- many communities did not have the barest minimum of facilities. The small town poor usually do not move away from their birthplace despite better opportunities in the big cities; many cannot while others prefer to gather with friends and family in small, tight-knit social groups and live a life with familiar things surrounding them. 

           In a remote village in southern Egypt, I was struck by how well the town functioned despite its evident poverty.  Small gardens grew in the narrow verge between the fertile earth watered by the Nile and the miles of rocky desert beyond. Small wood and cinder block houses lined the dusty road. Painted on the walls of a central building were airplanes and boats, indications of fulfillment of the Muslim mandate to travel to Mecca. Those who had been on the Hajj had become the leaders. The men met almost every day to drink coffee and talk. Those discussions had led to dealing with problems like the need for a car mechanic in the town. They raised funds and sent a bright high school student to a city technical high school for training. There was poverty but there was also cooperation.

               City dwellers may envy small town dwellers the many advantages of life in a small town -- the interdependence of neighbors, the quiet, peace, and proximity to nature. When the population is in balance, agricultural 'peasant' cultures have several thousand years of 'know how' and can provide for small communities and cope with most hardships. In China, millions of factory workers leave their towns for the big cities. They are the brave ones or the restless ones who do not want to spend their days on the farms struggling against weather, insects, plant diseases, wild animals, etc. When the factories close, many retreat to their old homes. Can you really ever go home again?

                When I think of “home,” I think of the lovely small town (Sharon, Connecticut) in New England where my parents found a ‘white elephant’ of a house. It is not where I was born but where I lived off and on for most of 31 years. It is very near where my parents first met as camp counselors at a summer camp (Camp Sloane). My father traveled a lot as an archaeologist and he moved the family several times across the country during my childhood. His was a synthetic mind – he could bring together disparate elements from all parts of the globe and formulate new and often quite original conclusions. Twenty years after they met, having moved across country to Seattle and back, 'fate' brought my parents back full circle and a house became available in the town near where they met. His conclusion: this is where he wanted to stay for the rest of his life as the little town was the most beautiful place on earth.

                Tucked into the “foothills of the Berkshires,” in several isolated valleys surrounded by rolling hills, a large town green stretches for several blocks along the main street, a small hill at one end where the elementary school is the major landmark, then another valley where small shops surround a large parkinglot. The town sits at the base of an ancient mountain covered in miles of forest. Historic homes and churches in Revolutionary Georgian and various Victorian era styles line the streets. Small groups of houses can be found on backcountry lanes spreading out for miles.

          Sharon has one of the largest land areas in the state and one of the smallest populations. The town itself is surrounded by forested mountains. Graves and statues demonstrate more than two hundred and fifty years have passed by here – a long era for an American town --  the essence of the town lightly shaped by the lives and deaths of its citizens. Soldiers went off to all of America's wars and came back home to be buried. Lovers met and parted. Families joined, grew, parted, died.

          It is an unusual community in some ways. Only about 2,000 souls live there year-round – swelling to perhaps 5,000 in the summer -- yet every person I ever met there had a fascinating life story. Celebrities have found it.  Noah Webster wrote his "Blueback Speller" (before his Webster's Dictionary) in the loft of the house now owned by designer Caroline Roehm. This is the town where in revolutionary times, a factory promoted that it could "build a better mousetrap."  For some 200 years, there has been a grocery, hardware, liquor store, post office, clothing shop, a hotel, as well as since the 1950's, a hospital and a summer stock theater.

                In the thirty-one years that I came and went from that little town, there were few visible changes. When I went back for the first time after five years away, people said to me, “How the town has changed! Go on up on the mountain and see how many new houses have been built.” To me, it looked pretty much the same but then I took a meandering drive through old dirt country roads and saw what they meant. Side roads lead through the trees to new houses perched on rocky outcroppings for the view or tucked into the forest next to musical streams.

               These were not cheap houses; the rich had discovered the little town and celebrities made it their weekend hideaway. Famous faces appeared in the grocery store and local restaurants. As I was writing a check one day and waiting for a manager’s approval, a man next to me was doing the same thing. I happened to glance at the name – unbelievably it was the same as a famous movie star’s. I looked up and saw indeed it was him. He too was living a local person’s life – waiting for the manager to approve his check. (Nowadays of course banking is more sophisticated and grocery stores issue ID cards).

                In following years, I tried on and off to establish a working life in that small town. It soon became clear that the world there was dividing rapidly. There were the wealthy who could afford apartments in New York City as well as Connecticut country homes. The rich were divided into the wealthy residents with long-time roots and the “nouveau riche” who had made a ‘killing in the stock market’ or ‘a good investment in utilities.’ They had moved into historic homes dating to the American Revolution thereby took on the status of those with “Old Money,” the sons and daughters of the Revolution, those select few eligible for the “Social Register.” Acceptance required real wealth; old-timers claimed it took thirty years residence to become a 'local.'

              Then there were the rest of us whose bank accounts were not as flush -- some with pedigrees, some whose families had lived there for centuries, some with no such claim-to-fame who by reasons of relatives living there or other circumstances ended up living in this small town.  The children of the rich commuted to one of the several excellent private schools based in the area; the rest of us were called "townies" because we attended the local elementary school and met up with other ‘small town kids’ who traveled for an hour daily on a bus to the regional high school.

                As a sociological experiment, there was much to observe in the dynamics that had endured for two centuries in this small place (a sociologist could have ‘a field day’ as town records have preserved much of the comings and goings of this small population). Identity and self-worth, for me and others who grew up there became a deep issue. Were we destined to be “servants of the rich?” Were our small businesses and creative projects “services to the community” or merely entertainment and suppliers for the wealthy? To be really poor in that small town meant you were unwilling or incapable of doing the jobs offered by the rich.

To work and earn sufficient money to survive, you would have to garden, clean, pump gas, clerk, or massage the rich, or else design a business that could overcome the obstacles of distance, weather, the lack of skilled workers or supplies.  As a member of a local Chamber of Commerce, I heard stories of businesses that lasted because they got into mailorder and found customers outside this rural area. Like so many in tourist-based communities all over the world, many people simply cut their expenses in the off-season and worked overtime during the peak months.

Looking back, the fortunes of the town can be traced following the swings of the national economy.  When the rich were doing well, the town enlarged, enlivened, enhanced everyone’s lives. There were arts classes and theatre in the summertime, weekenders passed through to see the brilliant foliage in the fall, families and friends cozied up to woodstoves and fireplaces in the long winters of deep snow, gardeners reveled in the first white and yellow spring flowers – snowdrops, daffodils, the joyful splash of forsythia bushes. In times of ‘economic downturn,’ businesses closed and young people moved away, but for many who could not or did not wish to leave, they followed traditional New England fashion, turned stony-faced, stopped buying groceries -- causing the grocery store to close --  and endured.

                What is the future of small towns? The benefits are many: the quiet life, the support of close friends and family, the open spaces. For those that have attractions, tourism can bring outside money into town but there are always losses when a town commits to commercialization  – loss of privacy, loss of the essential orderliness and familiarity in a place where everyone knows each other, even loss of dignity as the golden arches and neon signs move in.

               There is a completeness and circularity in a small town. People fill the niches, suppliers and supplied, merchant and customer, grower and consumer. Like the forests that surround my New England town, the on-going life is cyclical:  families and friends coming together and growing apart, births and deaths, and a life that has its moments of noise and also of silence.  Perhaps it is the intimacy and that silence that makes small towns so often more appealing than city life.  In the city, the cycles are subsumed to the linearity of getting things done, going to work and coming home to an apartment where others’ lives impinge through the walls. In the country, greater space underlies a difference in the meaning of social relationships: people get together because they need each other for mutual support.

                The farmer who raises dairy cows in the Berkshire Hills and the Thai farmer who plants paddy rice share in common a life of hard work and low income. What of those who aspire to something different – to run their own business or to become a teacher, artist, dancer, scientist, engineer, scholar, a shaman? What of those who wish to participate in the governing of their community or the sustainability of the planet? Will they live lives of “quiet desperation” or find  ways to ease their restlessness? What of those who lack ambition or resist new ideas because conditions or traditions have such a strong hold on their consciousness?

                  Education seem to offer some hope. But questions arise as to which communities will receive the funding for schools, teachers, libraries and other educational resources. If a town can generate funds from a site or feature that will attract tourists or has some special resource to be mined, it will be able to provide better opportunities for its citizens. Governments will take notice and add more funds. Success breeds success but is the community more worthy than any other?

                  It is possible to assemble a banquet of ideas to solve issues for towns. Those with knowledge have a responsibility to become mentors and share it with those who do not have access. Communities that honor their elders seem to be able to sustain themselves, perhaps longer than others that do not. The internet and the world wide web also offer hope. With basic training, a computer, and internet connections, it is possible to find out how others live in almost any community in the world.

                   The question is which choices will sustain a community or an individual for a lifetime and beyond? The elders may teach the traditions, but the 21st Century makes new demands. Do small town leaders have the education, experience, and wisdom to make the hard choices, for example, whether or not to promote tourism or to let mining scar the hillsides? Do leaders have the maturity to choose long-term sustainability over short-term solutions to immediate problems? Clearly, as ruined landscapes stand witness in millions of small towns, the wrong decisions have been made too often. 

                The past century was marked by countries overthrowing colonial powers. In the U.S., small towns have become subsumed to county, state, and federal governments. This top-heavy structure limits small town freedom. Yet should a small community always accept the leadership of the state? If the state dictates a dam should be built or a mine dug or timber cut, should the locals just surrender? Should we just do what we are told? For some of us – and I count myself as one of those eccentrics --  life circumstances or an inner voice tells us this is not enough, or that others' choices may not coincide with our own values. 

                What training in the thought processes, critical thinking skills, or specific sets of knowledge is needed to make the right choices on any issue? For the individual living in a small town, they must weigh the benefits of rural life.  The primary consideration is often what resources are available and what must be sacrificed. Are there sufficient resources to meet basic survival needs, to handle the inevitable cycles of feast and famine, to facilitate any needed or wished for change. Wisdom teaches, “The only thing that does not change is change.”

                 The obvious answer for all small towns is that they must have the ‘income streams’ that bring in and circulate the funds and assets to sustain the community. This could come from tourism, manufacturing, real estate, investments – there are many ways to generate income. Each one has its merits and drawbacks.

                In the Kingdom of Thailand, the King himself has offered the country a plan -- and a set of values -- he has called “the self-sufficiency economy” whereby each community attempts to be independent in itself and supply its own needs. Clearly, the ‘red shirts’ need help to overcome a variety of obstacles if they are ever to achieve this lofty goal. The difficulty is that it requires 'start-up' resources that a government – or a multimillionaire – can provide. The 'red shirts' argue that the 'yellow shirts' in Bangkok are ignoring their needs. "Self-sufficiency" is a consciousness-raising idea and does spur action.  With the aid of mentors, rural communities in Thailand are successfully figuring out how to share water, stop landslides, find alternatives to slash-and-burn farming techniques, build industries with trained workers, often around a traditional art or craft, and feed their populations.

            In the last few decades, Chinese communism with its tight registry and supervision has accomplished miracles in distributing food and work, though the smallest communities may 'fall through the cracks.' Thai culture has strong traditions rooted in a clear hierarchy and close-knit families. Youth and those of lower classes are taught in childhood at home and in school to be obedient to those who are ranked higher on the social scale. American culture, on the other hand, prizes "rugged individualism.' For the ‘picture postcard’ New England town where I lived for so many years, the options are wide but the obstacles are great, mainly due to the range of personalities that make up the town. Despite the old “New England Town Meeting” tradition, it is hard to get the community to agree on a sustainable direction.

A Connecticut policewoman complained to me that cell tower communications were hit-or-miss locally because wealthy landowners did not wish to have a cell tower built in their sightlines. Years ago, one group in Sharon proposed the building of a condominium; another group organized a parade of children carrying signs opposing it. One group saw the future of the town hospital in bringing in an outside national management firm, another perceived that as ‘selling out’ and mourned the loss of a local stake in its governance. A history of the summer stock theater established in the 1950’s would show how various factions shaped the summer theater offerings – some years with “outside professionals” who walked away at season’s end, leaving huge debts, other years with local groups struggling to sustain it, still others when it became an important center for the community to come together, offering youth training and quality ‘ community theater’ with talented people whose busy lives allowed them only time to appear onstage once or a few times a year.  The town encompasses relatively poor and extremely rich in a broad set of social classes and points-of-view.

So what will happen to small towns in the future? Will communities allow the life to slowly drain out of them as groups break into factions while individuals can no longer afford to live there, challenged by the same forces that are impacting the national economy? 

Will more towns take a cue from places like Nantucket Island which extensively markets its virtues while retaining tight controls on its historic character. The small town charm of Nantucket now seems almost artificial. It seems incongruous that huge mansions should be shingled by law. Where everyone rode bikes when I was a kid, now there are traffic jams. The choice to make Nantucket a historic conservation and tourist 'playground of the rich' has been accompanied by a major increase in cost-of-living which strains the families of my relatives that still live there.

Can the small businesses hang on as their profit margins become increasingly slim while waiting for the international economy to recover? Or will the chain stores move in as the international oil companies have already to every small town gas station and Coca-Cola and Pepsi compete on shelves of every grocery store? In small towns across the U.S., Wal-Marts and McDonald's have put the Mom-and-Pops out of business. Every other block in Thailand has a 7-11 convenience store.' Will tiny Sharon, Connecticut one day be incorporated into the New York - Boston Metropolis?

Can people afford to go on living their lives in small towns? Two hundred years from now, we will see housewives planting flowers at the crossroads or chatting in the grocery store? Can the small town way of life endure?

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)