I had a visit from the local police detective this week. I forgot to license the dog The Internet was aghast. "Live Free or Die, right?" Someone mentioned my state's motto. It is Live Free or Die. But it is also licensing your dog and returning your damn shopping cart. "Time to move" someone else said. But the fact that it is so safe here that it actually was the best use of the police's time means I will not move any time soon. Nothing much happens in a small town. That is the best thing about them.
"Sounds like Mayberry." Saying my town resembles an idealized depiction of small-town America seems like a good thing to me. I have always loved shows about quirky little towns. Classics like The Andy Griffith Show, or my childhood favorite Northern Exposure. The portrayal of a tight-knit community, with various insular social groups. No one is well-to-do. Often times the opposite. Everyone is time affluent, with plenty of time to talk, and no particular hurry to be anywhere. While this does not describe many small towns, there is usually a core of people like this. Who volunteer for everything and run the church and the town government. So, in that sense they have captured a truth.
Small towns are high trust. That means people put a lot of trust in one another, because they share each other's cultural values. Values like hard work, faith, tradition, responsibility, stewardship. With these values and the knowledge people have of each other they form behavioral norms. You trust a person, or not, on whether you expect them to act the way you would in a given situation. It is not that small town people distrust outsiders so much. But with nothing to judge them by they do not extend them the freedoms of townies.
They cannot afford to. Because the thing no one wants to talk about is that a lot of rural towns have no reason to exist. They did have a reason 100 or 200 years ago. But the mill closed, or all the farms got consolidated and they have not quite figured out their next reason for being. They go on for the people. To continue to be a nice place to live until they can try to make a go of whatever comes next. They have to hold the line.
Rural America is the frontline of a demographic crisis. You see the population bomb we were all warned about imploded. People are having fewer children and the ratio of retirees to workers is growing at an unsustainable rate. Rural areas are like a canary in a coal mine, on the leading edge of the trend, because the children they do have leave. They want to go off to college, and then move to a city, with lots of things to do. Our consumerist culture tells them it is higher status to gentrify some place they have no connection to than to go back and save their hometown. In 1970 1 in 4 Americans lived in the country and by 2022 it was down to 1 in 8.
Rural America is ageing out of existence. Nearly three-quarters of the counties in the U.S. saw their population ages 25-54 shrink over the last decade. Where I live in New England is old. Vermont and New Hampshire are in a three-way tie with Florida for the second highest median age at 43. Maine is the oldest state at 45. All of them have more seniors than minors. The technocrat's solution to this is to resettle migrants in small towns. Move them from where there are too many people to where there are too few. Like pieces on a gameboard. You should pay attention the next time your local small town YIMBY starts talking about "work force housing." It happened in Maine.
But remember what I said about the people being the reason these places go on? On their shared values and the knowledge they have of one another? Dropping unassimilated groups into the middle of rural America can only dilute the trust which allows these places to survive. It does not solve the cities' problems it spreads them. The small-town character and the pace of life are fundamentally altered.
With everything they have working against them small towns need to sweat the small stuff. Because the slope is indeed slippery. So, if they need to fine me so I remember to license my dog that is ok. I did not come here to change things. Or expecting the deference they would show a native. I came here to be a good neighbor, to hold to the local culture, and to integrate into the community. Others should to.
Good piece, Casey