While driving around Vermont recently, I kept thinking that there isn't a place in the U.S. that has so consciously said, "No, thanks," to globalization. The pharmacies are independently owned, as is nearly every other service retail establishment, and the chain stores are few and far between. There are more old-time move theaters than malls in downtown Burlington and Montpelier. Every food market sells locally produced meat, dairy and when it's in season, produce. The state's most popular, present-day exports are some type of food or drink. One of the U.S. senators is a socialist. State legislators earn little money and the maximum allowable campaign donations are much smaller.
Predominately rural states typically have an independent streak -- it's inherent to the lifestyle that everyone has to live there. But Vermont's is quite distinct from that of its neighbor New Hampshire, where the anything-goes spirit of its libertarian, "Live Free or Die" politics leads to anything plopped wherever someone wants. The meticulous stridency of preserving laissez-faire economics and politics is tiresome. In Vermont, there's a strong, conscious effort to stop the capital flows of the 21st century. The economy is remarkably and proudly internal, with a devotion to the local and the personal embedded far more deeply than anywhere else. Social value trumps exchange value over and over.
And this philosophy creates wonderful downtowns. Any strain of nostalgic urban development is often dismissed as reactionary and inauthentic, yet downtown Vermont is quainter than any new urbanist development hopes to be, but is nonetheless still refreshing and intriguing too. There's an equal number of stores where you can browse vaguely useful tchockes and buy real things. (Bear Pond Books in Montpelier is a particular treat.) The architecture is well preserved and appealing. People of all ages are out on the streets, walking. Parking is hidden behind buildings or on the edge of downtown -- no surface parking lots out in the front of stores are found here.
Unlike so much of the country, Vermont's downtowns have many of the features that create good urban form and yet, the state isn't remotely urban, even in its biggest cities. Burlington's population is about 42,000 and Montpelier's is about 8,000. That these sorts of places are found only in a handful of the country's biggest cities -- New York, San Francisco, etc -- and in the smallest of places like Vermont reveals a vast, empty expanse in the middle. In Massachusetts, dominated by home-rule government, where each town has its own legislative authority, every town makes a big deal of how distinct it is from its neighbors. "Natick is not Framingham," people say. Actually, Natick is Framingham is Needham is Acton is Danvers is Rockland, and so on. There are exceptions, of course, but each one's look and personality can generally be described similarly. These copies extend for miles, well beyond the lines.
Vermont's creation of downtowns like these also reveals a very worthwhile lesson: In the rejection of one thing comes the discovery of another. And adopting a well-defined value system is important because it produces places that are exciting, genuine and fulfilling. Above are photos of downtown Burlington and Montpelier.
Unlike so much of the country, Vermont's downtowns have many of the features that create good urban form and yet, the state isn't remotely urban, even in its biggest cities. Burlington's population is about 42,000 and Montpelier's is about 8,000. That these sorts of places are found only in a handful of the country's biggest cities -- New York, San Francisco, etc -- and in the smallest of places like Vermont reveals a vast, empty expanse in the middle. In Massachusetts, dominated by home-rule government, where each town has its own legislative authority, every town makes a big deal of how distinct it is from its neighbors. "Natick is not Framingham," people say. Actually, Natick is Framingham is Needham is Acton is Danvers is Rockland, and so on. There are exceptions, of course, but each one's look and personality can generally be described similarly. These copies extend for miles, well beyond the lines.
Vermont's creation of downtowns like these also reveals a very worthwhile lesson: In the rejection of one thing comes the discovery of another. And adopting a well-defined value system is important because it produces places that are exciting, genuine and fulfilling. Above are photos of downtown Burlington and Montpelier.
1 comment:
Nice post Aaron. I was thinking the same thing when driving through VT this past May. The economic self-sufficiency you point out is I think what makes small towns different from suburbs - the latter limited to making aesthetic gestures in token "historic districts".
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