Editor's Desk: On Target

By Kevin Williams

I  know it’s just a Target department store.   And we have plenty to choose from.

There are three Targets within 20 minutes from my home in three different directions.   Still, learning over the weekend that the Target in my hometown, Middletown, Ohio, the one ten minutes away, is slated to close soon stung . I had just recovered from the bitter taste of another favorite store of mine closing, this one a local grocer.   Dillman’s was the place where we’d run to get a dozen eggs in a pinch or orange juice or brown sugar.  We, admittedly, didn’t do our main grocery shopping there (a small produce section with no organics made it unappealing for large shopping trips) which a cashier later told me was what ultimately did them in.  There was never any waiting at the registers (perhaps a clue that maybe the store was struggling) and I had it timed so I could leave the house, buy some butter or flour, and be back home within nine minutes.

“Too many people used this as a quick convenience store, they would just run in and get a few items,”
a cashier muttered, glaring at the lone containers of cottage cheese and cat food that I was running in to buy.   My face flushed, I muttered something unintelligible and slunk away into the night.  She was right. And this is about a lot more than my easy access to butter, it’s also about long-time, loyal workers at Target and Dilliman’s now finding themselves without a paycheck.

Economic unevenness, for better or worse, is the cornerstone of capitalism. Not 20 minutes away is the booming municipality of Mason. I often look enviously at their city-run “rec center” which boasts an Olympic caliber fitness center, complete with smoothie bar, wifi lounge, and food court.  Conversely, in my declining Rust Belt redoubt, city leaders shuttered the lone swimming pool several years ago because they couldn’t afford to keep it open.

Middletown was once an economically vibrant city teeming with paper mills, a sprawling world-class steel-making facility, an accolade-winning hospital, and top-flight schools. Kids would graduate from high school knowing either a well-paying mill job awaited or desk duty in one of the many warrens of executive offices running the factories.  These ample opportunities created a middle class with plenty of money to spend.  But NAFTA and the Great Recession acted like a giant straw that sucked the life out of this town and continues to do so.  Dollar Stores and Cash for Gold stores are ubiquitous.

Our town used to boast at least four book stores.  Now there are none.  The one place left that had a so-so selection of books was Target, and now that is leaving town also. I can count at least five large grocery stores and three movie theatres that have shuttered.  Our once vibrant mall with its Gap, York Steak House,  multiple high-end jewelry stores and Sears now teeters on life support, the iron-lung of hope being the only savior sustaining it and I suspect that too will soon run out.

I’m not trying to be gloomy, I’m more just mourning the loss of what was once a very stable city.  Still, the very qualities that make capitalism so achingly unfair also are what makes it so appealing.  The currency of capitalism is hope and optimism.  Cities and human lives are cyclical, what goes down, ultimately comes back up.  There are green shoots of hope in our downtown.  An arts center opened downtown along with a community college branch. So the once empty, spooky streets of the city core have at least some life with promising students bustling in a long vacant office building.

I've not given up on my hometown, although Rachel and I hope to one day move to a quieter, more rural spread in the countryside where we can have some chickens and a garden.  In the meantime, I'll just have to drive 10 minutes farther for last minute gifts.  Or go to Wal-Mart.  Our town still has that.  Nah, I think I'll drive 10 minutes farther.  Or 20.