Word: townes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Another heavy blow in the '80s was deregulation of rail, truck, bus and airline service, along with the breakup of the Bell system. These changes permitted corporations to abandon service or increase rates in thousands of small towns. H.E. ("Ned") Valentine, owner and editor of the Clay Center Dispatch (circ. 3,800), finds the outcome ironic: "Both Presidents Carter and Reagan espoused small-town American values. Both were admired for it. But Carter's deregulation program, amplified by eight years of Reagan, has taken its toll here...
Clay Center's once-a-day bus service along two-lane U.S. 24 stopped two years ago. The bus carried mostly the poor and elderly to see their doctors or relatives an hour away in Manhattan. Bus service also meant that the town's two florist shops could count on daily deliveries of fresh flowers. And repair shops could often get same-day emergency shipments of spare parts. Although the town's cooperative grain elevator still has access to a working railroad spur, weeds surround the tracks. Reason: the Kyle railroad has added a $750- per-car surcharge...
While deregulation has brought lower prices and better services for many Americans, it has not worked out that way for residents of sparsely populated areas. Most economists would argue that the old system subsidized small-town Americans by requiring companies to provide services at a loss to such areas, but the U.S. traditionally saw rural development as worth the price. Says Jack Tierce, an administrator at the Kansas state corporation commission: "The transportation system of the U.S. was based on moving people from the densely populated East out West. Now it is driving people from rural areas into metropolitan areas...
Clay Center's aging population is symbolized by the skyline of the federally financed senior-citizen housing on the town's west side. The eight-story red brick apartment buildings are the only high-rises on the horizon. "Our big industry is Social Security," says Thomas Lee, president of the Union State Bank. "Fully one-third of our checking accounts are senior-citizen deposits." The aging process has also led to a leadership vacuum, as older business people retire from civic life. And the town's young people show no inclination to stay. When a visitor asked a class...
...dozen or more communities. Says Robert Van Hook, executive director of the National Rural Health Association: "Wal-Marts are the last nails in the coffins of a lot of rural Main Streets." Because downtown retail shops are important employers, their decline can be fatal to the rest of the town's economy as well. Another major small-town employer, the local hospital, is disappearing at the rate of more than 40 institutions each year. A principal cause was the 1983 decision by Congress to eliminate suspected rural subsidies in the Medicare system by reducing payments to small-town hospitals...