The choice: Shop at the Could-Be-Anywhere Mall... Photography by Robb Kendrick/NGS Image Collection

Small-town America at Risk

In Traveler magazine’s
October special issue, 50 Places of a Lifetime U.S., Bill Bryson writes about the “51st place,” the American small town and factors that threaten it. Small towns occupy a piece of the American soul. According to a recent survey, 62 percent of us visited one in the past three years, seeking what? Andy Griffith’s Mayberry? Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon? Ronald Reagan’s America? Perhaps the kind of wholesome, slower-paced life we think our nation once lived.

	...or in the stores on a small-town Main Street, as here in Engerlin, North Dakota Photography by Robb Kendrick/NGS Image Collection

When you visit, you see stores along Main Street, or perhaps around a village green or square. Inside them, service is personal, but prices higher than at big chain discount stores, because the shopkeepers can’t order in bulk. There’ll be a couple of Mom ’n’ Pop cafés. Parking may be metered and difficult to find. Locals greet each other on the sidewalk. The town invites walking, not driving.

By contrast, walking is hard but parking easy along the highway outside of town, where acres of asphalt surround “big-box” stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, fast-food franchises, and national-chain strip malls. Their arrival is often blamed for forcing local businesses to fail and transforming downtowns into dead zones. You get lower prices, but more auto pollution. More convenience, but less charm.

This month, the Tourism Forum asks:
If you could, would you ban big-box stores and strip malls in order to keep town centers alive?

—Jonathan Tourtellot

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