Post by brassmonkey on Sept 21, 2008 8:58:45 GMT -5
I ride a bicycle around town, and some of the things I see are very frustrating.
I have always had a good attitude about this town, but lately, I find myself changing my tune. I'm starting to regret moving here. When I first moved here, I loved it because although it's a poor town, the people seemed proud and unassuming. The problem, I'm quickly realizing, is that when you live in a poor town, it mainly attracts more poor people who benefit the town in no way. A bunch of poor people move to and comprise a town, and before you know it the streetlights are being turned off, houses are being abandoned and sitting vacant, school activities that were once free now have fees associated with them because all the poor people aren't shoring up the tax base, and businesses aren't surviving and, therefore, aren't improving the tax base. The schools suck, no matter how much the teachers and staff want to break their arms patting themselves on their backs, and as a result property values are dropping because nobody WANTS to live in a town with crappy schools. Only poor people and delusional people who grew up here and can't admit reality because it's their town. Then you have other people who have the "It's mine and it's all I've got, so I love it!" attitude. I fall victim to this attitude, myself. Mainly with a crappy cars that I've had in the past or a junky bike. I once had a Chevrolet Chevette-a right piece of crap by any rational person's standards, but to me at 20 years old, it was a Cadillac. Once I got rid of it, I was able to admit what a piece of junk it was. I fell prey to that delusion when we first moved here because it is where we bought our first house, but lately I've been admitting reality. This town really is bad! It's twenty minutes to the highway, thirty minutes to anything besides Wal Mart, and we don't even have streetlights. Now I don't really care about the streetlight issue because my headlights are usually on when I'm out and I don't let my kids roam the town after dark, but it's embarrassing to admit outside of Winchendon.
So what's good about Winchendon? The rural location used to be appealing to me, but with the price of gas that appeal has long since faded.
The animal control officer has been cut to 20 hours per week, and has since quit. It takes 20 hours a week just to keep the pound up, especially now that we have 7 dogs and a cat there.
We have trash littering our streets and roads and no one to pick it up.
We have many abandoned mills and manufacturing buildings sitting vacant, some boarded up, some not.
Okay, we have low crime compared to a lot of more, um, diverse towns like Fitchburg, but that, too, is changing.
And no hope in sight! The only ways we could improve the town is for the old-timers with the shitty "love it or leave it" attitudes to move or die off and for the income level of the town to rise, either with a shift in population demographic or with an increase in business influx. But neither is likely. The demographic seems to be headed toward the other direction, and no business wants to come here because there is no benefit. Nobody with a choice financially will settle here. People settle here because they can afford it, and their taxes don't even cover what they use in town.
I have always had a good attitude about this town, but lately, I find myself changing my tune. I'm starting to regret moving here. When I first moved here, I loved it because although it's a poor town, the people seemed proud and unassuming. The problem, I'm quickly realizing, is that when you live in a poor town, it mainly attracts more poor people who benefit the town in no way. A bunch of poor people move to and comprise a town, and before you know it the streetlights are being turned off, houses are being abandoned and sitting vacant, school activities that were once free now have fees associated with them because all the poor people aren't shoring up the tax base, and businesses aren't surviving and, therefore, aren't improving the tax base. The schools suck, no matter how much the teachers and staff want to break their arms patting themselves on their backs, and as a result property values are dropping because nobody WANTS to live in a town with crappy schools. Only poor people and delusional people who grew up here and can't admit reality because it's their town. Then you have other people who have the "It's mine and it's all I've got, so I love it!" attitude. I fall victim to this attitude, myself. Mainly with a crappy cars that I've had in the past or a junky bike. I once had a Chevrolet Chevette-a right piece of crap by any rational person's standards, but to me at 20 years old, it was a Cadillac. Once I got rid of it, I was able to admit what a piece of junk it was. I fell prey to that delusion when we first moved here because it is where we bought our first house, but lately I've been admitting reality. This town really is bad! It's twenty minutes to the highway, thirty minutes to anything besides Wal Mart, and we don't even have streetlights. Now I don't really care about the streetlight issue because my headlights are usually on when I'm out and I don't let my kids roam the town after dark, but it's embarrassing to admit outside of Winchendon.
So what's good about Winchendon? The rural location used to be appealing to me, but with the price of gas that appeal has long since faded.
The animal control officer has been cut to 20 hours per week, and has since quit. It takes 20 hours a week just to keep the pound up, especially now that we have 7 dogs and a cat there.
We have trash littering our streets and roads and no one to pick it up.
We have many abandoned mills and manufacturing buildings sitting vacant, some boarded up, some not.
Okay, we have low crime compared to a lot of more, um, diverse towns like Fitchburg, but that, too, is changing.
And no hope in sight! The only ways we could improve the town is for the old-timers with the shitty "love it or leave it" attitudes to move or die off and for the income level of the town to rise, either with a shift in population demographic or with an increase in business influx. But neither is likely. The demographic seems to be headed toward the other direction, and no business wants to come here because there is no benefit. Nobody with a choice financially will settle here. People settle here because they can afford it, and their taxes don't even cover what they use in town.
