These are not havens of free inquiry, of ingenuity, of controversy. They are as prim and predictable as the superstore-bookshops that rim them all, their ozonated air suffused with the smell of latte and the sounds of Mozart turned Muzak. The university is now itself the village that is entirely surrounded by the city of Chapel Hill. The mingling has ended. The town requires a degree of wealth and youth to be enjoyed.
Village elders are rare sights.
Tobacco farmers have been banished to distant rural wards. The clothing stores are all Gap-like. The professors' husbands are just as likely as the wives to be selecting the organic food stores' produce. A Michael Jordan restaurant is opening soon on ritzy Franklin Street, within walking distance of Chapel Hill's shard-sized ghetto. But I'm beginning to sound Bloomy again, startled by change.