Letters from Linden
by JACK LINDEN
Most cities – at least big cities – are identified by some activity or reputation. New York City is known as the center of the world’s economy, San Francisco for its liberal life style, Taos as an art colony and many more cities could be identified in such a manner. My question is how do we identify our small towns and how do we as citizens choose to describe them?
Too many small town citizens, when asked where they come from, generally identify their location by the big city closest to them. That kind of response doesn’t show much civic pride in their own small town. I have vowed that from now on, I am going to tell people precisely where I live. That response will cause more questions and I can then tell the many positives of my town.
I think too many people who live in small towns emphasize the negative aspects of their town. Yes, the governing bodies may not have the expertise of some of those big city folks but are the problems big? Yes, there needs to be improvements in the small town, but if it is so bad, why do we live there?
Those of us living in small towns should take an inventory of what our town offers. I remember a letter writer who told how living here allowed her to quickly get to her dentist and doctor in the large town nearby. Her shopping was made easier because of the outlet mall in a larger town. It was, she explained, easy to get to the airport and the interstate system allowed her to get to large cities 100 or 150 miles distant. There was not one good thing about our small town that she mentioned. She used the town as a bedroom to rest as she frequented other cities.
We also need to create an identity for our towns. Some folks would like to keep it as a historical place. But they need to make sure that the history they so want to preserve really happened and is not a fake “ideal” history. If the little towns could only take that history and tie it to something in the present and the future, the town could keep its historical places and stories and continue to thrive.
Another important aspect of building your town is its reputation. All of us know some towns are considered “speed traps.” Others are known for their ethnic population. We can only build the reputation of our town by having pride in it and its attributes. Brag about the hospital, the library or the good school system.
Your town is only as good as you see it. With the cliché that the world is getting smaller, we need to take stock of where we live. No town is perfect, but each of us can do something to make it better. We cannot live in the past and not, realistically, just in the present. We have to think of our town and how it will look in the future. If we don’t, our town will become just another dot on the map the highway bypasses. If we continue to go elsewhere to find the quality of life we want, we will become just as stagnant as many small towns have become.
