Re: Main Street USA Gone

Posted by wisbaker on November 16, 2013 at 22:49:57 from (173.30.33.15):

In Reply to: Main Street USA Gone posted by Harvey2 on November 16, 2013 at 10:30:47:

The only thing worse that having a Wal-Mart in your town is not having one. The decline in smaller cities across the US has many reasons, including bigger farms, economies of scale, basic economics,improved water and sewer methods, the ability to travel farther and the increasing complexity in doing/owning/running a business. Size of farms, where I grew up in Michigan in the 1920's the average family made a living on an 80 acre farmstead. From reading the 1940 census it appeared about every third farmer had a hired hand living at the farmstead. Anyone making a living farming there now is probably doing so on 1000 to 1500 acres, so even if they have a hired hand (who probably lives in a house or apartment off-farm) one family is farming what 12 to 15 did 100 years ago. That's a lot fewer families going into town for hardware, food, fuel, entertainment, clothes, medical, legal and personal services. Utilities- I work in an egg processing plant just outside a city of 2000 people. 50 years ago or more it would of been built inside the city limits to get city water sewer and reliable electricity. We have our own wells, water treatment and power sub-station, don't need the city. Economies of scale- the plant I work at was recently sold, the new owners have expanded, we are having a time getting the additional 10 people needed to operate what they have built. We have employees coming to work from 30 miles away, some from the market center city of 25,000 people 25 miles away. Conversely a far amount of people in this small city work for the RV manufacturer in the county seat of the county North of us and some in the big city of 25,000 25-30 miles east of us. With all the complexities of running a business and all the time it takes to comply with OSHA, EPA, DNR, AFHCA, EOT and our friends at the IRS and immigration and naturalization service if you've got 5 employees you'll need a 6th just to fill out the paperwork to keep state and local governments happy. Toss in the ADA act and new building codes the brick store front of the last 100 years in these small downtowns are basically obsolete. Add better roads to move people to work farther away and material to and from the city and next day air service for parts and supplies the small city isn't economically viable. Where I live in Iowa the railroads set up cities every 10 miles along the tracks, these cities were a place where goods and services were unloaded off the rail and products loaded on the rail to be taken to market. Most of the stuff sold in town like food and fuel now comes in by truck. Of course grain goes out on the rail but with most farmers owning semis and hopper bottoms it doesn't have to. Now about half these cities don't even have all the basic services (auto repair/sales, food stores, Doctor, Lawyer, dry goods, barber-beauty shop, hardware, appliance store, equipment dealer....)

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