America’s forgotten towns: Can they be saved or should people just leave?

[Docta_Love]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

im not sure what there is to save. people have choices and can come and go as they please. do i think small town life will ever return to its 1950s heyday for many communities, mmm, no i do not. but that doesn't mean the death knell for small town life. town on the periphery of big cities will probably do fine and maybe even some isolated communities will find ways to be marketable. we have the internet now so the opportunity to be a entrepreneur with a national, possibly global market is now available. so put your thinking caps on and you might be able figure out a way to make money while sipping coffee and wearing pajamas.

I think a good case study for this question of forgotten towns may be Sidney, Nebraska the HQ of Cabellas is being shut down as Cabellas merges with Gander Mountain and consolidates in Springfield, MO which seems to have won out partially because it has better infrastructure ie an airport. Now this town must re-brand and rebuild itself but there is no new Cabellas waiting in the wing like when its armory closed in the 60's. How does a town of 6,000 or so people in western Nebraska compete to draw in jobs. Every region will have its own niche to exploit think Greenville, KS after the tornado but many of the jobs that are created now a days even in bigger metro areas are service industry related which doesn't provide the same quality pay and benefits.

[llamaorama]

Originally Posted by Docta_Love

I think a good case study for this question of forgotten towns may be Sidney, Nebraska the HQ of Cabellas is being shut down as Cabellas merges with Gander Mountain and consolidates in Springfield, MO which seems to have won out partially because it has better infrastructure ie an airport. Now this town must re-brand and rebuild itself but there is no new Cabellas waiting in the wing like when its armory closed in the 60's. How does a town of 6,000 or so people in western Nebraska compete to draw in jobs. Every region will have its own niche to exploit think Greenville, KS after the tornado but many of the jobs that are created now a days even in bigger metro areas are service industry related which doesn't provide the same quality pay and benefits.

Interesting example.

Sidney is losing to Springfield, but Springfield itself is a smaller city that probably loses a lot to bigger metros and a picture of "heartland" middle class decline.

I can think of various ideas which could help save the Springfields but not the Sidneys. The latter may be sort of hopeless, and even if its not there's a matter of resources. A town of 6,000 is only 10% of a town with 60,000 but they are still sort of classed together as "small towns". Even the small city of 600,000 is sort of lower on the food chain. I guess to be efficient with things like government funding used to help local communities the truth might be that its literally 10x-100x times more effective to fix places which are at least moderately sized and hope they can then act as anchors to the little towns around them.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Docta_Love

How does a town of 6,000 or so people in western Nebraska compete to draw in jobs.

Why was it there in the first place? Surely there was no Cabellas for a large part of its existence.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Why was it there in the first place? Surely there was no Cabellas for a large part of its existence.

Cabela's is probably there due to the military history of the place (Fort Sidney). The armory shut down in the 1960s and Cabela's perhaps came out of the excess military equipment that needed to be sold off. Success grew from there and they didn't really move away.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Why was it there in the first place? Surely there was no Cabellas for a large part of its existence.

Making things, or being close to a natural resource required to make things, or at least a transportation route used for bringing that natural resource to the place where they made things.

None of that is where economic value lies today. Instead it's where a bunch of smart or talented people cluster together, which is wherever they want. There are winners and there are losers in that shift.

[Six Corners]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Why was it there in the first place? Surely there was no Cabellas for a large part of its existence.

Cabelas started off as a local furniture store in Sidney. When items didn’t sell, the store’s owner, Richard Cabela, listed them in national catalogs. They built a strong customer base from that and eventually started their own catalog. The success of that catalog led to the chain of retail stores. Wanting to support his hometown, Richard never moved the company out of Sidney.