Ice Cream, Gyros, and Gentrification

Sad news: I made my ice cream yesterday, but when I took it to the picnic, it more or less instantly melted and I only got to have a bite.  It was a good bite, though, and I will be doing it again.  I will get my bag ice cream.

But, the first day of summer was not a total wash, even with my melted ice cream.  I went on my errands, and we got Five Guys, which has become something of a guilty pleasure for me.  Overpriced?  Absolutely.  But they fill that bag up with a ridiculous amount of fries, and it's a good burger.  Good shakes, too, but of course I was saving myself for my homemade vanilla ice cream that never was.  Oh, well.

I won't be getting over this, obviously.

The concert we went to in the evening was nice.  It was a traditional symphony that was playing classic American marches, John Philip Sousa stuff, and we enjoyed it.  (They had a couple singers, though, that sang once at the beginning and once at the end, and they were laughably bad.)  It kicked off our town's five-day festival, which used to be this cute little thing in the park with all the classic fair food like gyros and elephant ears and lemon shake-ups, and fun little games and a lot of local businesses and artisans would set up booths under the trees.  It felt appropriate for a small town, but as we've gotten bigger (but kept some of that small-town mindset) and more gentrified, they've moved it to the downtown ("downtown") area.  

The first iteration of this new festival was abysmal.  Hardly any local artisans, no fun food, just a bunch of breweries and megachurches and insurance companies, and there was nothing to do except watch the fireworks on the last day.  It's gotten better over the years, with an art and car show tomorrow, and a street fair on Saturday with rides (they had this in a small scale last year with a cute Ferris wheel, so we'll see what it's like this year), and more artisans coming to sell their homemade stuff.  And the fireworks are always good, but there's still something missing.  I guess it just sort of all feels...manufactured.  The town (which is actually a city, but that just doesn't feel quite right to say still) used to be sort of simple and sleepy, just very typical, but it had legitimate, long-standing small businesses, a couple of really great restaurants, and lot more open spaces and greenery.  A good library.  Small neighborhoods of houses that had been there for decades.  But, as time has gone on and the city has changed how it markets itself, a lot of those businesses, those old buildings, and even homes and families have been torn down and displaced.  I understand some buildings may not be up to code anymore, and safety comes first, but now all the buildings are a grey, lifeless approximation of a city.  Because that's what this place is: an approximation of a city.  An approximation of culture.

I don't say any of this to make it sound as if I'm against progress - I'm not, but progress does not necessarily mean new buildings and a bunch of microbreweries and chains.  Gentrification, the displacement of families and businesses, is not progress.  It's just constant construction and putting money towards things we don't really need.  For as well-off as much of the city's population is, many families face food insecurity.  The community isn't very walkable or bike-friendly.  Because it costs so much to live here, it's not very environmentally-friendly, either.  Does the mayor really need to spend $3.4 million travelling in Europe, and then not telling us what that money is going towards?  Like with many communities, that kind of money could go towards truly helping people and mutual aid.

What I guess I'm saying is that the city's money could be used to help people in better, more effective ways than just building new shit and bringing in chains, and that culture and community is not something that can be forced by bringing those things in.  We already had it.  We had our fair in the park.  We had our one good, local, non-chain restaurant.  We had trees.

And now we have a Top Golf.

Regardless, it's where I'm from, so I will love and hate this town because that's how it is with your hometown.  We're all still going to the fair tonight because my brother is running in the 5k and we want to support him.  We'll go to the art and car show tomorrow, and hopefully support a small, local artist.  We'll go to the street fair on Saturday and watch the fireworks that night, and I hope to GOD there will be gyros instead of the local nondenominational megachurch asking me if I know Jesus.