Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
Here in the Battenkill Valley in far upstate New York, the bones of the small towns are still visible while the flesh of the economy that built the towns is now long gone. The Battenkill River runs from the other side of the Vermont line across Washington County to the Hudson River. It’s a swift, clear stream, and back-in-the-day it powered dozens of little factories along its winding way. They made men’s shirts, women’s lingerie, tea trays, ploughs, rye thrashers, boots, paper, and lots more. In a few places you can still find the ruins of these once-grand buildings.
Ruins of the Baxter Marble Mill, later the Bartlett All-Steel Scythe Company
We heard there was a good parade up in Salem, NY, ten miles northeast of here. Salem was a railroad town after 1852. It changed everything for a while. Farmers could send their potatoes and milk all the way to Boston. Slate was abundant nearby and there was a lively commerce in it for roofing and other things. Marble came over from Vermont and was dressed into tombstone blanks, which were sent as far as the Midwest. The railroad itself employed scores of hands in the roundhouse where its locomotives were repaired. This rail connection to distant places and markets must have seemed wondrous.
Waiting for the parade to start in Salem, NY
The system held together for less than 100 years and now it, too, is a ghost presence, along with the factories. History has treated this corner of the country with something that feels like swift injustice. Today, we remain hostages to the automobile, with its geography-negating banality, but you can see the end of that road from here, too, and it is already subject to a very public nostalgia. The Fourth of July parade up in Salem was mostly a parade of motor vehicles: fire engines, EMT trucks, tractors, vintage 1920s flivvers, 1960s muscle cars, one classic hot-rod, and one weird Avanti, a mid-60s product of the then-floundering Studebaker Company — which, ironically, had run a wagon and carriage assembly factory in Salem around 1910, just as cars were being introduced.
The economic history of this place looks like a sequence of great works performed at enormous capital investment, and then quickly trashed for the next new thing. It must have been intoxicating at the time. I’d put the high-tide of it all at about 1900, when all the systems of manufacturing and transport were humming in synchrony. Turns out it was an economy with a surprising purpose: to get rid of itself! And it’s stunning how gone it all is now. What replaced it is not only happening far, far away, but many items made far, far away can’t even be bought within a twenty-mile journey of any town in the county.
I pass through Salem about six or seven times a year for one reason or another. The rather grand old Main Street is usually empty of pedestrians. Only a few of the remaining shopfronts sell useful merchandise so there is no reason to walk down the street. There are several impressive old buildings — skeletons of that ghost economy — clearly falling into terminal disrepair. Yet, on the Fourth of July, the streets were full of life, for a change. Many (like us) had come from far-and-wide. We turned out to show love and respect (and curiosity) for whatever it is this enterprise called the USA is supposed to be now. Mostly, our national situation seems a matter of waiting for various shoes to drop.
The Central House, formerly a hotel, now an evangelical social center
There’s one big advantage to living in this flyover corner of America: it has received next-to-zero of the destructive suburban development overlay that has obliterated the landscape in those parts of the country that can pretend to still be booming. It is a blessing that I’m keenly aware of. We’re just too far away from the cities, and even from the Interstate Highway network. So, when I behold the economic desolation in these little towns of the Battenkill Valley, I’m aware that, at least, we will not have to dig out from under the burden of the Big Box hell imposed on just about every other place from sea to shining sea, when that economy turns over — a process actually underway now. The K-Mart in my town, Greenwich, NY, shut down in March. When enough of those predatory outfits are gone, someone may get a notion to sell stuff out of our empty main streets shops again. Of course, nobody’s thinking about making stuff that might be sold in those storefronts, but a sense of opportunity may arise quickly as the wind-down of Globalism — and all it implies for local places — becomes self-evident.
RV, barn and corn, a Washington County vista
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Truly an example of the working class tax base squandered by the collusion of the big three circle jerk club : Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street profiting for decades like a parasite ultimately killing the host and moving on . Move on they did and when legitimate profits could no longer be extracted “THEY” printed debt notes and key stroked trillions of debt for the Big Club to profit from leaving Main Street America in the trash bin of history .
Numerous opportunities were there to protect defend and continue a thriving industrial economy with the ability to benefit the American citizens who were handed all the debt created and told they aren’t worth very much as they were thrown under a bus .
Now we have a decayed shell of what was and government employees demanding debt loaded pensions from those thrown overboard 40 plus years ago .
Shit is about to get real pretty damn quick !
You will know that the shit is about to hit the fan when these things happen:
1) Many of the Big Box Chain restaurants start closing.
2) People start leaning how to sew because they have to make their own clothes.
3) Flea markets come out of their depression and start to boom because you need to buy things which can’t be bought new; i.e., many retail stores have closed.
That is ,of course, assuming the next generations wake up to recognize opportunity. I really hope they do.
The next generation is in for a painful learning process. I come from a time and work in an industry where everything needs to be maintained and where both tools and equipment can be serviced and repaired. Being brought up in a world where 99% of what you buy is in a landfill within 6 months has not prepared this generation to maintain the world around them.
When the Western Roman Empire fell the knowledge of how to make concrete went with it. For more than 1000 years, people could see that the Romans figured out a way to make liquid rock that would harden into whatever shape you wished but couldn’t replicate it until 1824 when it was re-discovered here in the United States.
The generation coming of age now will look back in wonder at the Atlantis that fell into the sea should any type of disruption cause us to once again lose our secrets.
Buy books. Hardly anybody buys books anymore. E-books or Gargle wont help you much when the power is out. Whatever will happen when the last Kindle stops working? Alexa, why dont you answer? Alexa?
Actually, book sales are on the rise across the fruited plains.
As we go off today to view 4 farm/bugout properties I find myself thinking I should try and clean up these rural areas where people seem to throw all their trash in the front yard as if they are white man playing basketball and never make a shot in the trash can. I ride by these places and never ever ever see anyone outside, ever. Either they are at work (prob not because if they worked they would have money and money that means they could afford trash bags) or they are playing xbox with all their free time, or in a sex crazed 24 hour meth session everyday. I cannot be sure but i know they clearly know how to throw every damn bit of trash in their front yards and never bother to pick it up. I want so badly to get elected to make regulations to stop this but the other side of me says hell no to each his own on his own property. We are still free. So i came up with an idea. If your property is not homesteaded (you personally live there) then it is deemed a business and if you rent it or not you can be fined for trash everywhere. This maintains property rights for homesteads and with keeping business and illegal aliens that rent and treat your communities like the shithole country they came from by shitting in their front yards, literally. Most of these eyes sores are immigrants that rent and the owners of the property need to be held accountable as well as the dweller inside. At least one of them. The leasee should be fined since they are the ones doing it. The lessor can be fined if the city, after 3 notices over 6 months comes in and cleans up the trash. Fine plus the costs.
However, i see many old junk yard homes that has every bit of scrap from their entire lives. That freezer they bought 38 years ago leaning against the barn. I also think one day these bits of trash will be valuable and having them all sent to the dump could be a mistake. This dystopian future i see is where that poor bastard with old cars, fridges, etc etc etc all over his yard become the richest little bastard when the emp hits and old crap is priceless. Old hand tools etc etc.
For someone who likes to rail about autos, Jim sure likes to travel.
I am currently living in Eagle Bridge, a short drive to Salem. We moved up from Georgia to be with our newborn granddaughter. I buy my groceries at a co-op and a farmer’s market in nearby Cambridge. I’m struck by the old architecture of bygone wealth, a still operating railroad with decrepit tracks like those in the movie: Stand By Me and the natural beauty of the surroundings. But I’ve noticed that most of the people I see walking around are old farts (I’ll turn 70 in a week). The youngsters are, in many cases, tattooed like the wallpaper in a French whorehouse and obese. I do try to spend money locally if, for no other sensible reason, than to make me feel like I’m helping. This piece captures my sensations driving through perfectly.
Cancer happens when the body’s cells multiply unchecked. As such, bigness always kills the host, eventually. Always.
All Big Business will eventually fail under the crushing weight of their own bigness. Even America, the biggest baddest motherfucker of them all, will eventually choke to death on its fat.
The two-fold question is; 1) what remains, 2) what takes its place?
A word of encouragement to Mr. Kunstler, and to those who also despair ….. keep the faith! Main Street in Smallville, USA might very well make a comeback.
Cancer happens when the body’s cells multiply unchecked.
Also, the little fuckers refuse to observe their expiration date.
Hope you are right, Stuck.
It is sad how britain and many in the usa all feel their country is gone. We all just sit around our keyboards like old typing warriors bitching about the old days and waiting on the final implosion while we watch things, like our culture, cities, morals, religion, and economy all crumble. We speak nostalgic about that which has not even come to pass. It truly amazes me how big bad assed we all are and say how and what we would do to commie mother fuckers if we had a chance. What we would Have done to the enemy of our nation. Yet we all just sit around bitching daily of that which has not occurred , waiting and hoping it does occur so we are vindicated in our righteousness of truth. This country is not over. It is not lost. It is not unrepairable. The media and dems want you depressed and to believe 56% of the populace is gay or bisexual when truth is less than 1% is gay. We choose to believe their bullshit because if we didn’t, we may have to get off our fat lazy asses and actually fucking do something other than fucking type shit like this. No. We will not march on congress much less our local town halls just a mere few blocks from our homes. We will not write our senators, hell we wont even pick up the damn cell phone in our back pockets to call them to express our voices. Yellow pages. To far away in the laundry room but we refuse to google their numbers. But we all have so much fucking time to sit around playing keyboard warriors and bitch bitch bitch. Type type type away our lives to each other. We wont even type shit and hit cc in an email to our senators or congress but we surely will sit around here and moan and bitch and type and start fights with each other about all kinds of bullshit. I have been around here since 2008 lurking mostly until the last 2 years watching and observing. Its sad if most of us are the patriots this nation is depending on to save it. I would be ashamed. I am ashamed. Yes my knees are bad and as well is my back and i am no longer that young whippersnapper i used to be, but i get shit done. Do you? No? Then start now. Find a a way to make a difference. Write letters and allow people to place their address and name on it. You mail it for them. Pay for the damn stamp you cheap ass. Etc etc. Do fucking something, but stop the bitching already. No one here is allowed to ever gripe or bitch again unless you first type what you recently did, what action you took on any cause to make this nation great again and stop allowing idiots to rule. You sent an email to your local councilman. Fine then. You can bitch. You didnt send an email? Then stfu already. I like my rules.
Oh, I recently mailed 1,000 signed petitions to congress that took me 2 months to get signatures of legitimate names address and email and phone of each one. So they can verify and know shit is real and the issue is a voting issue. What have you done? My bitching is done for the day! Match me, I dare ya…..
Mr. K is a contemporary of mine and this piece struck a chord. There are also a North and South Salem, NY, both in Westchester County, the latter village abutting Greenwich, CT, where once I lived, when at that time there were still residents who referred to the town as “Green-witch”, as once it was known by all. Given that it has long been a NYC bedroom community, it has lost all its once delightful character , transformed as it has been into a synonym for obscene excess brought in by financial market jiggery-pokery and those who profit from it. I honestly don’t know which is worse, the devolution of Mr. K’s countryside or the deluxe transformation of what 60 years ago was still a wealth-mixed small town with waterfront charm and long traditions now subsumed by gauche wealth display brought in by the puffed up nouveau riche poseurs who presently populate the place.
I left the USA for what appears to once and for all back in ’98 and 21 years later find myself in a small Argentine rural village which in many, many ways is reminiscent of the small-town America (US version) of the ’50s, the time of my childhood and adolescence. It’s a racially mixed (Euros & Mesitzos) community, but community it very much is. Just came back from the nursery school my grandsons attend and many of the moms came up to give me the traditional cheek-kiss that is common here. This is one of those places in which everyone knows your name, so to speak. I and my son are the only gringos (i.e. North Americans) here, but we’ve “assimilated” to the degree possible. It’s a delightful little place and watching my grandsons at play brings back fond memories of my own childhood. I’m sure such places still exist up there, but…
Happily, we don’t have ex-pats such as those Fred Reed described in a recent post here, and it’s doubtful we will; this place is just too “exotic” for folks such as they. For that matter, we don’t have any like Fred either, although we could do far worse than Fred, who is far from being as boorish as many of his critics. I’d be fine with having Fred as a neighbor along with the recently realistic and equally bright Mr. K.
Latin America is filled with places that are far from being “sh**holes” as anyone with discernment who visited them would clearly see. And down here in rural areas, the men are men, the women women and children are still allowed to be children, boys will be boys and so on.
Nice post Montefrio. Makes me want to visit such a place.
Thank you. If ever you decide to visit this small place, there’ll be a lamp in the window. You’d be most welcome and I believe you’d enjoy it. Very family oriented community, wholesome activities for the little ones and even the larger ones. Smiles and hellos in the little shops, always a chat or two, doors left unlocked and so on. Makes Mr Rodger’s neighborhood look like a walk on the wild side.
How wonderful, thank you! Sounds idyllic! I lived in Simsbury, CT. for 18 years. Nice little town in the north central part of the state. We have that in common as well.
Vermont is for hippie losers.
After moving to Jackson Wyoming, I cant understand anyone wanting to live there?
There is not 1 category on a par.
Vermont will be made much, much better when about one million Somalis are imported to there; that ought to get things “vibrant”.
I was a territory manager for a specialty food distribution company in Western Michigan and Northern Indiana a few years back. The article could have described numerous small towns in the Great Lakes/ Midwest region. Moved to metro DC and it is a different world.
Liberals taxed NY State out of the game.