In my last lengthy solo car trip, back in 2018 (Plano – Las Vegas, described in full here), I spoke of seeing small towns on the map, expecting to find a gas station so I could fill up the Tiguan’s tank and not be stranded in the middle of Nowhere New Mexico in sub-freezing temperatures, and getting to the “town” to see… nothing but a few houses.
So this little comment by Jeremy Clarkson rang several bells for me:
“Loneliness is a big issue in rural areas and part of the problem is villages losing their soul. You don’t have a village doctor anymore. He’s in a health center 30 miles away and you can’t get an appointment. There’s no village bobby on the beat. There’s no village vicar, there’s no village shop, there’s no village school. If we end up at a point where there’s no village pub then what is a village? It’s just some houses. Pubs are the hub and it should always be that way.”
I bet it’s the same Over Here, too. We’ve read all sorts of stories about how small towns can’t find doctors who want to work in tiny communities, how young people are quitting the towns of their birth and childhood for cities because there’s nowhere for them to earn a living as singles, let alone as a family, and how the arrival of a Walmart ends up with the “downtown” becoming a ghost town.
It’s all very well for one to take the “survival of the fittest” attitude towards this phenomenon — that such places shouldn’t be supported because they’re economically unviable — but that seems to me to be very harsh.
Then again, if a municipality is incapable of supporting even the most basic of services necessary for survival — auto repair shop / gas station, restaurant, doctor’s consulting room, post office, or even a school, for example — then there really is no reason for its existence. (We’ve never really had a “pub culture” to the extent they have it in Britishland, but that doesn’t mean a local bar should be excluded from consideration, either.)
Moreover, when those establishments don’t exist there are no employment opportunities either, even at the most basic level: waitresses, auto mechanics, receptionists, mail carriers or schoolteachers. No wonder the kids clear out.
And yes, things are a lot easier in the U.S. for people who choose to remain in small, secluded villages because our infrastructure is so much better here. A ten-mile trip in, say, rural Tennessee is no big deal, a ten-minute drive or so; but it’s a whole ‘nother situation in rural Britishland, with their narrow roads that meander all over the place before (eventually) reaching the chosen destination. Back when I was living Over There, getting from Free Market Towers to the local village of Melksham, for example, was a journey of only a few miles, but it was a full half-hour’s drive involving no fewer than six different roads and directions. (Rural Wisconsin, incidentally, has the same problem with minor roads marked as “KK” or “UU”, but at least you can cane it along them because they’re relatively wide and straight. You are likely hit a deer, though, something highly unlikely in rural Britain, but that’s not the point.)
And from a pub’s perspective, you’ve got that added issue of the dreaded Driving Under The Influence, but when if you’re just going to the local for a pint or six, you have only to stagger home, no car necessary. (Ask me how I know this. #KingsArms #EnglishmansFarm)
What, then, creates a community, if there are no establishments where one can see neighbors and which can foster some kind of community spirit? As Clarkson says, if it’s just a bunch of houses — which are insular by definition — then there is no community, and no soul.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any solution to the problem.
...these last two items have one thing in common.
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#Florida
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