Wherever we look these days there are Save signs. Save the planet...save the whales...save our schools...save our jobs....save us from the government. Often the true believers march or conduct vigils to drive home their point for the media. So far, though, darn few marches or candles for our most endangered species: The local merchant!
America -- especially blue-collar cities like Chicago -- has been built by the sweat and swagger of local retailers. Butchers and bakers, barbers and beauticians, tailors and shoemakers, bookstores and florist shops, plus cozy mom&pop stores of all kinds.
Instead of faceless franchises owned somewhere by invisible bankers, these are friends and neighbors. Sure, you're sympathetic. But so long as you keep trekking to the flashy malls and buying on the glitzy websites -- poof! there goes a big chunk of America.
But here's the problem...
Once people get something fixed in their mind (really, their gut) it's hard to dislodge it. For instance the recent Toyota debacle. Overnight, the company's prestige crumbled. A new and disquieting narrative about their product took hold of the American mind (gut). Despite a massive PR campaign by Toyota, this negative narrative is lingering. Very much like the negative narrative about local merchants being unable to compete with the big boys.
True or not (and it has often been proved "not"), this narrative may have found its way into our minds (gut) to the eventual detriment of Little Local America. You don't have to be old to start missing the sweet-used-to-be...
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"You don't have to be old to start missing the sweet-used-to-be..."
ReplyDeleteHow true! I started missing my youth and the "sweet used to bes" of home when I went to college! And they grow with each year I get older!
Some of us are at a great advantage -- we can savor the present but also taste the past. I think that's the best of both world
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