What I am talking about is globalization, corporatization, the things that the rich kids busted windows over in Seattle and Davos, with which I have no sympathy. In the aggregate I still agree that it is better to let things die than to prop them up artificially against the overriding economic reality, which is that small and local is expensive. But our identity is taking a beating here. We used to have six Fortune 500 companies here, a lot for a small state . Now they re all gone but 3M and General Mills.
People feel they are losing control.
The best we can do for now is to try preserve the past in whatever ways we can, in hopes that small and local become cool again, and people choose it over the big and faraway. Then it will be the future, the new economy will be an old economy as well, and my ambivalence can finally be resolved. Provided everything hasn't already been bulldozed. Click on the picture and buy a memento . I enjoyed serving this essay up for you.