Viral Banality: The Waking Suburban Nightmare Of Now

I grew up in a small town in southern Delaware called Milton. The town now boasts a population of 1,657, which was lower when I lived there years ago. There were a ton of antique stores crammed with all manner of dusty, random junk that I absolutely loved. We had a farmer friendly grocery store and a number of small, family-run shops for whatever else you might need. When news of a corporate chain moving into a lot of vacant land began to surface, there was an incredible uproar from community members. At the time I couldn’t understand it, anything new that came to town meant something to distract from my “boring” days of hanging out on my favorite felled tree by a peaceful, quiet lake in my tiny, picturesque Victorian town.

We eventually moved, and the chain eventually went in, and eventually I began to understand just why everyone got so upset when the very thing they held so dear to them — a special place largely free from the vulgarity of yet another insta-shop — was being attacked. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in a city, the frenetic pacing, the concrete and neon, even the parade of liquor reeking indigents are all things I’m fond of. However, what I am decidedly not fond of is the race toward total homogenization in which almost every city and town is taking part.

Go almost anywhere in this country and you’ll see the same thing; Safeway, McDonalds, Rite-Aid, Blockbuster, Walmart, etc. Sure, the names might be different, but ultimately it’s all the same. Endless seas of gray, non-descript buildings amid vast parking lots buzzing with shoppers too distracted by the acquisition of Cheap Stuff to realize what they’d given up by accepting (and embracing) cookie-cutter tripe.

You all appreciate the weird and wonderful, or why else would you be here, and that is exactly what we’re giving up. The strange places you could find just by picking a direction and wandering are gone now, replaced by Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut Super Shopping Centers. I don’t necessarily hate these places themselves, nor the corporations that put them anywhere they can; expansion is good for business, plain and simple, and I wouldn’t begrudge a conglomerate their ongoing success. Hell, they make some of my favorite Stuff. It’s simply the attitude of accepting empty homogeny for convenience that drives a hot spike of testy annoyance into my very core.

The video by Toby Segaran illustrates my point best. In about 40 years the United States has been covered in a blanket of Wal-Mart, almost certainly bringing with them any number of smaller chains that tend to flock toward that kind of thing. The fight is largely over, sprawl will continue, but if nothing else can we at least break up the monotony a little? What do you say MegaGloboCorp?

Walmart Growth Video [KiwiTobes : Babylon Falling]