I’m in a small city that works quite well as the supply center, market center, banking hub, and governmental capital for a agricultural hinterland. We’ve had a gringo developer plan a lakeside community that hasn’t been built on for over six years, with lots still for sale on time, for $12,000 to $30,000 US (something in the order of several time the average annual wage for at least half the people here. Last time I went buy, someone was pasturing cattle on the place. The web site claims it’s an hour and a half from Managua — more like three — and also claims a few other things than are dubious.

I think most people here would like more prosperity, but most studies show that tourism is money for a few and a lot of lower paid jobs for most.

If this rather nice place despite its shabby architecture and zinc fences ever develops in a way that makes more of the people here prosperous, I’m all for it, but most development from the outside tends to be inflationary and disruptive. The tourist areas of Nicaragua tend to have the more violent and confrontative crimes, more street begging (kids try here, but it’s not serious and people do help older people and known neighborhood homeless people), and more illegal hustles of various kinds.

With any of these places, I want things to be better for the people who had been living there, not to see the place swept clean or nearly clean of its original population, who created the place, and turned into something else. Some outsiders seem to be intriguing and welcome: here, the Chinese family who runs a shop, the Russian vet and her second Nicaraguan husband, various other expats who seem to fit in well enough, some with Nicaraguan spouses. Some aren’t. The planned gated community would be for people who want to be set off from locals who don’t have their money, their tastes, or their senses of color propriety (one of them suggested the city should paint over the FSLN street tags on street lights and electric utility poles “in neutral colors.”).

If the city finds ways to make most of its people more prosperous without causing housing and good inflation beyond a rise in wages, that’s really wonderful, but I’m suspicious that this isn’t what happens when the gated communities and big resort planners come to tow, any more than with the businesses who bring their own workers.

Thanks for your input! I admit cheerfully that I only spoke to “locals” and not to anyone on the other team, since it was an up and back business trip. I’m handicapped by not having “rich text,” so I’ll respond in all caps.

You wrote: “What the author fails to mention is that Round Rock is 10 minutes from downtown Austin via I-35. The growth in Round Rock is partially due to sprawl from Austin and can’t be pinned on one company alone. THE FACT REMAINS THAT OLD RR DIDN’T HAVE HOUSES IN THE 190′S. Dell has done more good for Round Rock/Austin than any old timer RR citizen has-ever. GOOD BY WHOSE STANDARDS? I’M CURIOUS, NOT DEMEANING. WHAT HAS CHANGED THAT IMPROVED RR? THE THREE PEOPLE I DID BUSINESS WITH OR TALKED TO CERTAINLY DIDN’T AGREE! ONE, AS NOTED, WAS A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER AND ONE WAS A CPA. I’m sure the thousands of children at Dell Children’s hospital will agree. THERE WEREN’T THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN THAT NEEDED HOSPITALIZATION BACK IN THE OLD DAYS. IF, AS YOU SAY (AND OF COURSE I BELIEVE YOU) IT IS ONLY TEN MINUTES TO AUSTIN, SEEMS TO ME THERE ARE JUST A FEW HOSPITALS THERE. ST. DAVID’S, FOR ONE… Also, the 45, I-35 expansion is due to increased traffic heading into Austin and not Round Rock. HOW INTERESTING. WHERE IS IT COMING FROM, AND WHY? When Dell moved here, the rancher’s sold their land at a premium and no one held a gun to their head’s. VERY TRUE. IF YOU OWN LAND, IS IT EASIER TO SELL NOW THAN IT WAS BEFORE? ARE YOUR TAXES HIGHER OR LOWER?

I am glad that Dell is here now. ARE YOU A NEWCOMER OR AN OLD TIMER, JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY? The Austin tech economy is not doing all that well, but at least there are jobs here now. Austin is doing very well for as much doom and gloom that is being reported. Dell has been here for over 10 years now. The author makes it sound like that the locals “all of a sudden” couldn’t find parking spaces and started standing in lines. SORRY, DIDN’T MEAN TO CONVEY THAT, JUST THAT A ONCE PEACEFUL, SLEEPY LITTLE TOWN IS NOW UNDER THE STRESS OF BEING STRICKEN WITH WHAT SOME OF US THINK IS URBAN BLIGHT. I guess he means at the Round Rock Express baseball stadium “Dell Diamond” that Dell built for this area? HE’S A SHE, AND YES, I NOTICED THE NEW STADIUM. I ALSO SAW HAPPY PARENTS WATCHING THE KIDS PLAY SOCCER OUTDOORS.

Texas is a big state – anyone who thinks that progress will not hit an area around the I-35 interstate needs a lesson in modern economics. I CANNOT DO BETTER THAN QUOTE MADAM X WHO SAID, “LET THEM PROGRESS SOMEWHERE ELSE!”

My advice: Move to del Rio, Junction, Wimberly, etc. Round Rock sold out a long time ago, friend.” DEL RIO IS HOTTER’N HADES, HAS FLOODS OCCASIONALLY, AND IS ON THE BORDER, NOT A SAFE PLACE TO BE, ALTHOUGH CIUDAD ACUNA USED TO BE A DELIGHTFUL PLACE. I HAVE RELATIVES AND FRIENDS THERE. I ADORE JUNCTION, WHERE THE LOCAL EPISCOPAL PRIEST IS A CLOSE FRIEND AND THEY HAVE THE GREATEST PIE MAKER IN TEXAS. DON’T KNOW ABOUT WIMBERLY, BUT THANKS FOR THE TIP. i HAVE A FEELING IT IS UP SOMEWHERE AROUND OKLAHOMA?

I HAD AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION TODAY WITH SOMEONE FROM A TOWN WHERE ALCOA CLOSED DOWN A PLANT RECENTLY. THE GENTLEMAN IS DELIGHTED, NOTING THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO ECONOMIC BLIGHT AND LIFE ROCKS ALONG VERY NICELY WITHOUT THEM. BACK TO REAL TEXT. This, obviously, is a very personal choice we all must make taking into consideration our personal resources, preferences, means of supporting ourselves, and opinions on the future. I was responding to those who think small towns are dying and can’t imagine why anyone would move to one. I think my point remains valid, that for those who can find a small town untouched by “progress” AND have the ability to support themselves, dropping out of the rat race is a terrific thing to do in general and particularly important considering the current social, politica, financial, and economic chaos.

I’m reminded of a 50-year-old cartoon from The Saturday Evening Post, which showed a man with a drink in his hand saying to his wife, “You rumpus your way and I’ll rumpus mine!” It helps if you know that what is now usually referred to as a “family room” was called a “rumpus” room then. If you’re happy in RR as it is, friend, may you prosper and remain so. I’m going to keep on hunting a spread farther out and far more isolated, myself! LBT

Thanks for the comment, and I agree. NIMBY!

Walmart is a great thing to have about 25 miles away for those few things that small towns cannot provide, and there aren’t many, particularlly in these days of e-Bay, Craig’s List, and on-line shopping. Another hazard is that with the current round of store closings and bankruptcies–which can only grow worse–what happens when the bean counters decide any particular Walmart isn’t profiitable enough and shuts it down? You can’t just revive the local hardware store, drugstore, and mom and pop grocery that were driven out of business overnight.

The same holds true of small ski resorts, which cannot compete against larger areas. Their fault, for diversifying into tourists?

Amen on the prison situation! My personal solution is to outsource prisons to Mexico, where a survivor emerges (if at all) with a strong incentive never to return. Why should we endanger our people and spend the equivalent of an expensive college education on felons each year, when Mexico would probably be thrilled to have the business for, say, ten dollars a day? Twenty, for sure. I can’t see any good reason, although it would help if the demand to legalize at least marijuana were implemented. No, of course I don’t use “recreational” drugs, unless you count a menthol cigarette and a nice, chilled glass of lambrusco. However, something like half of those incarcerated are there on minor drug charges, busy learning criminal ways, having closed innumerable doors to a better future. This isn’t good for them or us.

All of this goes together. We have too many people, too few of them supporting themselves in any way, and a government determined to make being self-sufficient ever more difficult.

If you’re in Kansas you have additional problems, based on my experience living in Derby when John was with Boeing. Great farmland, but golly, there aren’t six weeks out of the year when it isn’t too hot, too cold, and/or too windy to be outdoors! It wouldn’t be a great place to live without electricity–as many found in the tornadoes of the summer of 1990–and if (as I hope) you have looked into such things as generators and fuel, you can see that accumulating enough diesel or propane to last six months or a year isn’t a viable solution for most of us. Even with stabilizers gasoline (also expensive and requiring costly tanks to store) isn’t good for more than a year or so; without them, in six months you have an interesting flammable substance that will not run internal combustion engines. There aren’t enough trees to talk about, so a fireplace isn’t a good solution to your heating problem. We burned–literally!–an enormous tree over 75 years old that finally blew down this year over a very mild winter. At grocery store prices Charles has a $75/day habit, and we use the fireplace primarily for comfort and beauty, not for heating.

I would love to hear what preparations you are making for the problems we foresee, because I have been haunted for the last year and a half by thoughts that I have overlooked something that will be “obvious” when social order breaks down. This isn’t going to be like Christmas when nobody thought to buy all sorts of batteries just in case someone sent a toy that requires them. If it all goes down–or up in flames–as badly as it could, what you have may be all there is for a dangerously long time. LBT

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I am glad that Dell is here now. The Austin tech economy is not doing all that well, but at least there are jobs here now. Austin is doing very well for as much doom and gloom that is being reported. Dell has been here for over 10 years now. The author makes it sound like that the locals “all of a sudden” couldn’t find parking spaces and started standing in lines. I guess he means at the Round Rock Express baseball stadium “Dell Diamond” that Dell built for this area?

Texas is a big state – anyone who thinks that progress will not hit an area around the I-35 interstate needs a lesson in modern economics. My advice: Move to del Rio, Junction, Wimberly, etc. Round Rock sold out a long time ago, friend.

You could change just a few things and it would fit “Walmart comes to town” in Goodland,KS or elsewhere and watching the Main Streets close down. Also, what’s happened to any small mountain or ski town in Colorado. Moving prisons into small rural communites and on and on and on!!

Ya, gotta feel for the locals, but I guess that’s what we call progress????

We won’t go gently into that particular good night, however.

The megalopolises around the world are the very picture of overshoot. They can’t be dismantled and their populations can’t just be absorbed into more sustainable modes of town and country life.

No use crying about it now, though.

These are interesting time in which we live, no? Resource depletion, energy scarcity and the attendant collapse of debt and the unsustainable growth it promoted…what a stew!

Stay tuned as we try to navigate our way through, Shooters.

The weather seems finally to have turned pleasant in Baltimore. I plan to enjoy my weekend. You do the same.

Regards,
Gary Gibson,
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder