The Great Retail Utopia Myth: Methadone For Municipalities In A Malaise by Doug Wrenn

The Great Retail Utopia Myth:

Methadone For Municipalities In A Malaise

By Doug Wrenn

September 14, 2007

You've heard the names before, and all too often: Blue Back Square, Renaissance Place, The Shops At Evergreen Walk. One is being built, one is (I think) about to be built, and another wants to expand. And now, according to a recent article in the Waterbury Republican American, a similar plan will be proposed next month to town officials in Beacon Falls. (Yes, that's in Connecticut.) But with all this devolving, building, and expanding going on, the daunting question is, can we really all shop until our taxes drop?

The typical scenario to this cookie cutter shell game goes like this: a town is overtaxed, services are stretched, businesses are leaving, revenue is down and politicians, a breed hardly known for far sightedness, turn to a developer, a member of another breed that is typically half a species above a used car salesman, but with more suave oratory skills, matching socks and a couple more teeth.

The deal is struck, and soon, half the town infrastructure is torn apart for a couple years, organized chaos reigns, and then the monstrosity moves in. Eateries have names that begin with the prefix, "The", and suffixes that end with "A Place For (fill in the blank)." Uppity stores with snooty clerks, who only make slightly more per hour than the burger flipper in the local fast food joint (on the other side of town), but can at least converse in English, albeit while condescendingly staring at you above the top of the solely cosmetic "reading glasses" at the tip of their long, pointy noses, direct elite shoppers with Botox in their faces, plastic in their hands, and Silicone just about every where else where they can find a name brand more suiting for their image, despite lacking the funds to pay for it. And yet for all that phony snootery and flippant harrumphness, fully grown adults leave these places with pricey, brand name garments with more logos of animals sewn on them than a souvenir T-Shirt from Disney World. Harrumph, indeed.

Scattered among this small community within a community is the obligatory movie theatre, showing the same lowbrow garbage as at the local Cine 1-2-Many, but at higher prices, because, well, after all….

Also embedded in this microcosm of everything else around us, but in a more compact and expensive area are condos and/or apartments, of course, "upscale," which I can only presume are occupied with people so pure, so superior and so utterly and very obviously sophisticated that their chic abodes don't require any commodes. Double harrumph!

And maybe, just maybe, if you're really lucky, you can even have in your very own little bubble, your very own snooty, coffee shop, where underachieving bums with long hair, granny glasses, flannel shirts, and empty but designer label brief cases sit around all day during regular business hours for the rest of the world, sipping, pondering, reading and reflecting, and why not? It's not like they have a job to go to or anything. Warning, just like in your local burger joint, conducting business in such establishments requires mastery of a foreign language, but of a different vernacular. The whole delicate applecart of these cerebral, now happening but blissfully tranquil places gets egregiously rocked however, when the poor, unsuspecting anorexic little debutante behind the counter expects her next customer to saunter over with a shop bought tan, and wearing an untucked shirt with the animal du jour over the pocket, Dockers, and moccasin-clad feet (without socks) and in a deeply reflective way, requests a Grande half skim latte with room for extra dairy to go, and instead, she gets some beach tanned, ethnic, fat, sweaty, hairy grunt like me, who asks for "a large dark one with real milk on the fly." GASP! And harrumph, once again.

But what's really going on behind the scenes here? First of all, lots of once tranquil, aesthetic beauty gets ripped out of the ground unmercifully. With all the construction, cones, barricades, blinking lights, and roughshod streets, town is now Commuter Hell until this fiasco is done. The wives (and/or) girlfriends, as well as kids of many of the local cops will enjoy far better Christmas presents this year with all the OT Dad brought in while idly supervising manholes, and for all the coffee he drank while doing it, rest assured, it came from a place that spoke the native language, and offered its wares for a far lesser price, despite the fact that for the boys in blue that price was chopped in half, if not "on the arm."

Lots more people will have good jobs. Most of them will be in the construction trade, and despite wherever they live, and often not in town, when the project is over, they'll be gone, and so will their money. But then there are the sales clerks, you know, those snooty primma donnas with the cosmetic reading glasses, who took the innovative technology of Goodyear's vulcanization process and applied it by the inch onto their faces with layers of industrial strength, re-enforced make-up, and about a quart of some insidious fragrance that ranges somewhere between a very cheap Chardonnay or a very expensive vinegar, and in either case dubbed something overly classy like, "O' de Vomitus." At minimum wage or a buck or two above, maybe they're off welfare, but probably still on some sort of government assistance, and whatever little their putting back into the town kitty, it ain't much, and unlike a factory, it's not like their employers spawn a wide breadth of other feeder businesses. Retail is pretty cut and dry; you buy, then fly, and only when you get home do you ever ask why They're boss, of course, the assistant manager is easily recognizable by his zits, incessant bubblegum chewing and sporting that never obsolete really nice tie worn with sneakers look, probably has big dreams while attending community college at night would have made P.T. Barnum proud. His boss couldn't actually afford to give this admirably industrious but otherwise only slightly experienced lad a raise this year, so he gave him a title instead. Now this poor, mislead, low paid sucker with the newly inflated ego has a brass (plated) name pin, and an additional hour to commute to work every day. No revenue return there either, except for maybe the owner of the local corner gas station, where Chad now stops for new Octane for his used Neon on days with a "y" in them.

But now the deed is done, and it's time to thump a chest (preferably one's own), give a speech, cut a ribbon, tip the hardhat, and/or smash a bottle of champagne on something hopefully difficult to damage. "Schmuckville Square," "The Consuming Commons At Crooked Creek," or "Haughty Haven: A Place For Acquired Elegance," or whatever else you want to call it, finally has it's grand opening, and in come the shoplifters, robbers, check forgers, identity thieves, pick-pockets and various other derelicts of society, from every imaginable dark corner and out from every slimy rock, from places as far away as New Haven, New York, Newark and new way to screw you. These less than desirable "new-comers" prey on unsuspecting clueless shopping yuppies wearing animal themes for attire so they can then later go back to whatever hole is home to satisfy their drug habit. Answer: More cops, however, unlike the other kind of "Peace Corps," these folks expect to get handsomely paid (besides in free coffee) for their peace keeping services.

Now all the construction paraphernalia is gone, and alas: traffic lights, and more lanes painted on the pavement. Yet sometimes, traffic still gets backed up, and especially at certain times and at certain hours. Gee, traffic was never much of a problem before. Answer: More cops. Stupendous! Oops, maybe not. See above. (Coffee, anyone?)

And what's all this litter all over the place? Look, over there, where all the grass, trees, bushes flowers, birds and squirrels used to be, and what is now a paved "Right Turn Only Lane." Darned litterbugs! Somebody should call the cops. Oops, no cops. Too busy for litterbugs. See above. (Refill, anyone?) Lives of truant officers (the few that still roam the Earth) will suddenly get easier. You can count on hooky-playing kids to go to the local mall like an escaped prison inmate always goes back to his girlfriend's house, and in both cases, these rocket scientists are always astonished that you actually found them!

Well, quality of life is grossly all over-rated anyway. At least now, the town has more revenue coming in. Our taxes should go down (as some have predicted) any time now. What? What do you mean a mil rate increase for next year? What happened?

Well, downtown in the smoke filled rooms, in the offices of mayors, selectmen, economic developers, park/rec commissioners, the Finance Board, the Library Board, the Board of Education, etc… Democrat as well as Republican, all now see all this money coming in, so do they pay down the town/city's debt? No of course not, they spend, spend, spend, and why? Because now they have all this money coming in! I just said that! Pay attention! We need to expand our schools, upgrade our library, and while we're at it, our cramped, outdated town hall could use some bigger and more posh digs as well. OK, so we'll expand the library, close the old schools, build newer schools, and take town hall and move it into one of the bigger, older closed schools, once we completely refurbish that building and get the building inspector to "uncondemn," it, once we show him how serious we are with our cost over-runs for this building project, despite the consultant we previously hired for six digits to scope it all out for us. Wow! This is nice! Look at all the room we have in here now! Hey, now we can throw out all our old stuff and buy all new office furniture, and with all the extra room, we can hire more support staff so that we won't have to work quite as hard and focus more on the matters that really count, like going to more out of town conferences. And because our support staff will now be so busy, we'll give them all voice mail for their phones, so they won't have to be disturbed by those annoying gadfly taxpayers anymore! Oops! Oh, wow! Look at that! We're cramped and outdated all over again! Gee, how did that happen? Hey, by any chance, did any more new development project proposals happen to come in this week?

See the picture? I didn't make this story up. It really happened. Most of this mess I described I actually up close and personal saw in a once quaint town that I formerly called home for many years. The rest I saw in other places, but you get the gist. Like I said before, "cookie cutter." Maybe, just maybe, for a while, some of these towns stabilize taxes, but for a short while, if any. When was the last time (despite promises) you ever heard of any Connecticut town reducing its taxes? I lived through this once already, and continually I see it reoccur all around me. It's like a bad movie being played over and over again to people with memory deficiencies. Politicians just want to be heroes (and get reelected) and the poor working schmuck citizenry gets duped and fleeced once again while they were obsessing over more weight and pressing matters like American Idol, Paris Hilton and the Yankees or Red Sox.

We will most likely never see any semblance of industry ever return to our municipalities, and most of that blame can be aimed at the bumbling bureaucrats at the state and federal levels. Meanwhile, our towns and cities still face real problems that need answers and continually answer that clarion call with "not-so-smart" growth. Yes, retail may be the only answer, but at the Mom and Pop level, and without turning the town upside down. How many malls full of useless, frivolous, trendy, over-priced stuff are enough for a populace living paycheck to paycheck and praying every week that nothing unexpected, expensive, or catastrophic happens as it is? As our government faces a $56 trillion debt, and still prints worthless money without gold backing, we all live on credit, and banks give credit to someone with a pulse, a massive influx of retail isn't the way to go. How many of our big box stores from the 70's and 80's, as well as countless "strip malls" are now empty elephants with dandelions piercing their way through the crumbling asphalt in the abandoned parking lots that once accommodated hundreds daily? Most strip malls throughout the country historically only last about 30 years, and the dead properties they sit on are about as economically viable as a leper colony, and now we succumb to the trend of these behemoth retail mini-cities. Where does it end, and how?

Some financial experts are predicting a recession within five years and a depression within ten. We've already seen the effect of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. China is dumping US dollars, and other nations we have borrowed from are considering the same, and our economic demise is only part of China's master plan, with a war for the grand finale, assuming it's even necessary or we're even capable of fighting one. Just this morning while working, I drove past a car dealership in Bridgeport that advertised only proof of a job is necessary to obtain credit. Beautiful! Only in a America can the local illegal immigrant leave work, remove his burger-grease-stained apron from his five buck an hour part time job, walk down to the local dealership and drive out the same day with a 2007 SUV with all the bells and whistles, financed with a 30% variable rate for 450 months, with no money down required for two weeks, and a wink and a nod for a signature on the bottom line. OK, so perhaps I'm digressing a tad, but it's still all part of the same big problem.

It still comes down to basics. Run a town or city like you run your home. There is no free lunch, there is no quick fix, and when in a hole, stop digging. I recently heard a senior citizen complain about her "over 55 community" being grossly over-taxed for the limited municipal services they receive, as the residents pay for private snow plowing, road maintenance, and trash pick up. (In other words, she is claiming "discrimination" against this "over 55" community!) OK, true enough, but these folks also enjoy free transportation on the town dime to shopping and doctors appointments, a luxury I don't have, and they also take up much more time and resources of our fire and emergency medical services, due to their many accidents and medical ailments, and I don't hear anyone complaining about that. Some of these folks also complain that they have no kids in the school system and still have to pay for education. Fine. Then either give up your senior citizen tax cut or pay a bill the next time you dial 911. No emergency vehicles came to my house last year, but I still had to pay all my taxes. Who put the gun to your head and forced you to move into your little isolated, gated commune? Does your insurance company reimburse you for not filing a claim during the previous year? Part of the problem is the attitude of the citizens. And part of the problem is the attitude of government officials. FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) started this trend, and we have since cloned ourselves into an army of "FDR's" (Frequently on the Dole Refugees) ever since.

Throwing money at education does not equate to smarter kids, and Connecticut has the astronomical school bills and failing test scores to prove it in the not-so-great social engineering experiment that failed abysmally. Cut those various specialized primma donna jobs in the education department, which is about two thirds of most municipal budgets. Cut out park & rec and senior centers. Let the seniors organize their own social clubs and here's a brainstorm: Let the kids just go out and just play with other kids. Why does government have to subsidize "playtime" for adults and kids? Which amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees government funded Bingo, shuffleboard, bus trips to the casinos (where all those senior citizen tax rebates are spent by those on allegedly fixed incomes) or for that matter, Wiffle Ball, tag football or concerts on the green? Why does every town have to have the biggest, best, shiniest library, when a library card can be used in any library in the state, and while every town has its own library? The problem isn't seeking revenue to pay for what we have. The problem is once we get the revenue, we spend more that we can't afford. It's kind of like when the government bails out a bankruptcy, and the recipient goes bankrupt again. Cut waste and spending, and then you can cut taxes, which in turn will also eliminate the need for corporate welfare and senior citizen tax breaks. No citizen is more or less important than another one. A senior citizen tax break makes about as much sense as a hate crime. When citizens are willing to stop going to the government trough, and government officials start truly practicing fiscal responsibility for the money of the people, everyone will pay less and enjoy more, but sadly, kids of al ages, including adults, now bristle at that dreaded and politically incorrect word, "No!" Cut the socialism. That means no school distributed condom for junior, and no Wednesday afternoon Gin Rummy for Grandma, at least not on the government dime. Otherwise, Junior can take a cold shower (alone), and Grandma can knit a quilt (at home).

Given our national financial status (or lack thereof), both now and in the near future, coupled with the welfare mentality of the masses and the myopic, least path of resistance style of officials, along with the toothy grin and oily handshake of the local real estate developer, this retail cookie cutter formula is yet another potential recipe for disaster for us and the next generation or two in the coming years. The answers: 1.) Fiscal prudence, everywhere you want to be. 2.) Personal accountability, never leave home with out it, and 3.) Common sense: Priceless!

Doug Wrenn