My brother, who is an assistant professor of economics, and I were talking one night. The conversation went through the usual range of topics for siblings: baseball, hockey, etc. I had made some off-handed observation about where I live and my brother said something that struck terror into my heart:
“You should write that down. I have some folks that might like to hear it.”
So here we are. An airline pilot who has never written anything more interesting than a technical manual attempting to find two creative brain cells to rub together and express an idea in a field I know nothing about. Good thing I’m a pilot. Where we lack expertise, we make up for it in raw, unfounded confidence.
I live in Small Town Middle America(™). You know: the kind of town that has more churches than restaurants and more gun shops than churches. I married a wonderful woman from here whom I love dearly and, for reasons I’ll never understand, loves me, too. Her family is locally famous: her grandfather and his brother owned several apple orchards and a successful farmer’s market/general store. Her grandmother worked for the county archives and is well versed in the history of the place. I love sitting around what was formerly the storage shed of the orchard listening to my wife, her aunts, uncles, and grandparents tell stories of growing up.
When her grandparents sold the market, they also sold the orchard so they could live comfortably in retirement. What once was a peaceful orchard is now a subdivision, filled with McMansions and every street cleverly (at least in the developer’s mind) named after varieties of apples. Big Box Store moved in and some small businesses shut down. You know what? There’s a certain convenience to the big box stores. You can get your milk, eggs, underwear, picture frames, dancing Santa statues, and fishing rods all in one place now. Widgets and Whatsits galore. Then other Big Boxes moved in to try and capture a piece of the pie.
The phrase I said that got me into this mess was, “I love watching markets evolve.” What I meant was this: yes, Big Box has made things more convenient, but it also took away a lot of the individuality of each aspect of the market. Big Box has what is generously called a bakery, but all the food is prepackaged and realistically, you have very limited choice in variety. Where did the market for specialty breads go? Did it die? Does it only live on in nostalgia?
For years, I was told, there were no real bakeries in town. But then, slowly, like moss growing after a volcanic eruption, they started to show up again. People still demanded that experience and those products. Eventually, someone was willing to cater to that niche.
Today in town, we have bakeries full of delicious things, outdoor shops that offer specialty gear and expert advice, craft breweries specializing in the mundane but also the weird, wild, and wonderful (two weeks ago I had frankincense beer; it smelled like a funeral but tasted delicious!). Do they pull in the kind of business that the Big Boxes do? Not by a long shot. They don’t need to; they fill the wants of people.
To me, it’s kind of like the rainforest. You have the big trees that soak up lots of sun, but there’s still enough room for everyone else in the ecosystem. The demand didn’t disappear. Suppliers just evolved to face a new reality. I can’t help but think that Charles Darwin and Adam Smith are both somewhere shedding a tear of happiness.
Dennis Murphy is a professional airline pilot with a background in aviation safety, accident investigation, and causality. When he’s not flying 737s, he enjoys the company of his wife, their dogs, cats, and bees.
READER COMMENTS
Dylan
Jan 28 2024 at 1:25pm
Lovely piece and observations, Dennis. Glad your brother talked you in to writing this down.
It reminded me of something. In 2005, my wife and I moved to NYC after spending most of our lives in the PNW. At the time, one of the differences we were kind of worried about was the availability of “good” beer. Microbrewing had been a thing since at least the 80s in Washington State, and had expanded through most of the west by the early 2000s, but previous trips suggested that beer culture hadn’t yet made it to NYC (looking back on it, I’m mad at myself for not seizing the entrepreneurial opportunity). We were worried that it wouldn’t come, and that good beer was a thing in the past for us. Which was sorta true for about a year before local microbrweries started to pop up in and around the city.
What we hadn’t expected, hadn’t even known to think about, was that good bread would be hard to find. There were bakeries on almost every street it seemed, how could there not be good bread? Yet, we found out that New Yorkers and bread are similar to Germans and beer, they figured out one recipe a long time ago that they really liked, and have been working on refining it ever since. They recoil in horror if you suggest putting something a little bit different in the bread. Unlike beer though, this one hasn’t budged in nearly 20 years here. Luckily, my wife just over the last couple of months has figured out how to replicate and improve upon the west coast styles of bread we remember from our youth. Now, I’m just trying to talk her in to opening her own bakery.
Laura Brown
Jan 28 2024 at 2:53pm
Beautifully written Dennis,
So interesting and true, I love the whole piece but the line that hit my heart is
Do they pull in the kind of business that the Big Boxes do? Not by a long shot. They don’t need to; they fill the wants of people.
Love you, be proud of you you are and all you do.
Auntie Laura
steve
Jan 28 2024 at 8:18pm
“I married a wonderful woman from here whom I love dearly and, for reasons I’ll never understand, loves me, too. ”
Good suck up move. Totally approve. Anyway, I live in the sticks but my postal address town has a population of about 2000. All of those small shops are gone. he good news is that the local supermarket decided to run their own bakery and while most of their stuff is blah they somehow manage to make incredible donuts, beer than the old bakery in town. However, 7 miles south of us is a town of 10,000 and north of us one of 40,000. They have all of those small places. Of course the gap in time was about 10 years. So I wonder if there is a size effect and I dont think we should discount the time effect. Anyway, we ended up with more choices, just need to drive more.
Steve
David Henderson
Jan 28 2024 at 9:28pm
Nicely done, Dennis.
Richard Fulmer
Jan 28 2024 at 11:13pm
The appearance, and increase in number, of small, specialty stores in Mr. Murphy’s town indicates a growing and increasingly wealthy population – people who can afford to buy goods of a greater variety and higher quality than is typically sold by volume retailers.
Some of that new wealth may be a result of the big box stores that enabled people to save money and that expanded the market by attracting out-of-town customers along with new entrepreneurs and businesses.
Perhaps big box stores aren’t necessarily the small-business killers that some claim.
David Seltzer
Jan 29 2024 at 9:54am
Lovely story Dennis. In 1998, we were living in Atlanta when we decided to build a home in a small North Georgia hamlet. About two days by covered wagon from ATL. Our nearest Starbucks was 20 miles away. The first Two Big Boxes were Wally World and Costco. Our experience is similar to yours. Our little town has grown and we have coffee shops, lovely restaurants, A brewery in a converted firehouse, several vets for our fur babies, several gyms…etc. The small town character is still here with enhanced choices. We love it here.
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