On the Shopping Block by Ben Chadwick graphic by Scott Herman I In this corner, weighing three million tons, is Barracks Road Shopping Center, where the middle-class effete retreat for wheat and sweets. In the other corner, Meadowbrook Shopping Center, weighing 20 tons, where students, townspeople, and tourists fix flat tires. You may recognize Meadowbrook by its rusty old marquee, which looks like a divider between urinals at a D.C. public bathroom. Although Barracks is hardly new, it represents a new philosophy for Charlottesville and exhibits the mentally paralyzing neurosis of the Charlottesville city planners. Barracks is one of those places where Charlottesville sells itself out to the big bandits, the Beds, Baths and Beyonds, the Barneses and Nobleses, the Rubies Tuesday, and so on. Meadowbrook is old and decrepit and pathetic, its parking lot shriveled and cracked. You know what this article is all about. Some preachy liberal (like myself) decrying the huge chains and blaming the oncoming apocalypse on these tyrannical soulless monstercorps, like Starbucks. How I miss the good old days when you could walk into a store run by someone like Gran'paw and he'd give you a strawberry lollipop and everyone in town knew everyone else in town and it was all just one big lovefest. How horrible is the wake of the superstores, the Wal-Marts, Caldors, Targets, Kmarts, driving out the little entrepeneur who can't get everything at such reduced prices, how naughty is capitalism, etc., etc., etc. Actually, I don't feel that way at all. I'm going to try to be impartial here. We'll see what happens. I've never lived in a community like the hypothetical Mom-and-Pop town. I'm from the decidedly un-picturesque Herndon, Virginia, which is crammed in between Dulles Airport and Reston, the new breeding ground for yuppies and infectious monkeys. The cultural evolution of Herndon was permanently stunted when the strip mall was invented. I swear, Herndon has more than seven strip malls located on a single mile-long stretch. Strip malls are inherently cold and disinterested -- something about having thousands of customers every day makes it difficult to be enthusiastic for everybody. So I've always been inclined to believe Mom-and-Pop is a myth, a populist fantasy. When I've travelled through rural Virginia and our Appalachian neighbors I've seen a few of those little general stores run by kindly old Hallmark-card grandma-figures. But I've seen just as many little general stores run by big little generals, camouflaged Soldier-of-Fortune minutemen who see every customer as an intruder and a communist. Colorful as they may seem, most people will gladly trade the paranoid scowling for the forced smiles of Kroger cashiers. There are all kinds of "small guys," and they're not all smiles and sunshine. We shouldn't pine for the salvation of the small guy being crushed by Wal-Mart without fair representation. When you visit the megamarts you gain: a huge selection rock-bottom prices a friendly and courteous sales staff ... at least in theory. And I can't refute these assertions, even if they only serve to mask the mediocrity of the products. There's nothing you can legally buy at the 7-Day Junior that you can't buy at Harris Teeter with more to choose from and at a cheaper price. Even Foods of All Nations, Charlottesville's elite supermarket for those locals affluent enough to choose Turkish peanut butter over Skippy, has increasing competition with the larger Fresh Fair. There are more books in one shelf at Barnes and Noble than there ever have been at Brillig Books. The big and brawny are not without their advantages, and no amount of anti-capitalist pipe-dreaming will take those advantages away. The planning dictators have two options. One is to face stagnation by trying to keep the superstores out. This would be disastrous for the town's economy and growth and limit the purchasing options of the ever-increasing population. The other option is to welcome the giants and allow the small guys to be trampled underfoot. This is better for the local economy, but it sacrifices Charlottesville's uniqueness as a town. photos by Joel Alford II Charlottesville's uniqueness as a town. What is that, exactly? Right now, in Fairfax County and its neighbors, they're building several more strip malls. I know this with absolute certainty although I haven't read about them or seen the construction sites. They'll take a forest or former soccer field and within days it'll be a parking lot enclosed by happy-looking stores. There will be one or two slow-food restaurants -- Olive Gardens or Silver Diners -- and then a Super Crown, a Circuit City or Best Buy, a low-end department store (Upton's or Monty Ward), some harmless toy store (i.e. Imaginarium), some cheap clothiers (Ross Dress-for-Less), a bagel establishment, and a Burger King. Everything, quite simply, that a person would ever need. Fairfax is not just a place. It's also a philosophy of absolutely efficiency and convenience. Northern Virginia is suffering from incessant growth and progress, a lethal cultural virus that won't stop until the entire country, and then the entire world, looks exactly the same. Fairfax County is mind-bogglingly dull. There are two things for people to do for excitement amid this land of superstores: the first one is the mental escape of television or other drugs, and the second is physical escape escape to someplace threatening like D.C. or to a nice country burg like Charlottesville. (Theory: D.C. residents have seen the "prosperity" of its neighbors Fairfax County and Montgomery County, MD and have deliberately elected the most inept person on Earth as mayor to keep things interesting, potholes, shootings and all.) Charlottesville is a great town because there is a $2 golf course, a public street-hockey/skateboarding rink, there are tennis courts and basketball courts aplenty. There are mountains to hike or bike, fields and lakes and rivers, Monticello, and Ashlawn-Highland. There are bars where badmouthing Stonewall Jackson will get you killed, and Big Jim's Barbeque, where your social status is proportional to your girth. Not to mention the university. Charlottesville has character and charm. It should be no surprise that it was ranked #1 small place to live by Money. I lived here over the summer in a state of peaceful indolence or sublime decadence, and despite being totally broke, I proved Money's report true. But those who doubt the efficacy of the Fairfax Virus are simply deluding themselves. They'll be gladly bulldozing the cheap golf course and skate park in a few months to build the Meadowcreek Parkway, to accommodate the high-speed needs of rich northern-Albemarle residents. The other fine elements of Charlottesville life wait in terror, trembling on the chopping block of Fairfax values. Wouldn't Monticello make a nifty hotel? And you could put a T.G.I. Friday's right next door. Route 29 will become one-hundred strip-mall miles -- we're most of the way there already -- stretching from Barracks Road all the way to the banks of the Potomac. And scenic Albemarle county will be a Fairfax facsimile. The fundamental question: is economic prosperity worth its cultural price? III I include in the term "culture" anything that persists in society despite being inherently inefficient in terms of human goals. Institutionalized art paintings, plays, dance, etc. certainly qualify: they don't provide food and usually don't assist reproduction either. Other, more social aspects of life also fit the rubric: religion, regional cuisine, fashion tastes, unusual architecture. Not to mention bigotry, ignorance, and indolence. These local features, whether appreciated or appalling, are the spices of life. And therein lies the trap. If you try to embrace progress and make your society recklessly efficient and prosperous, the cultural irregularities erode away toward smoothness and sameness; basically, you're a Nazi for destroying culture. But if you try to prevent progress you're an imperialist for effectively subjugating the locals and keeping them impoverished. There can be little doubt about the worth of the Fairfax County model. Economically, Fairfax is where it's at: wealthy lawyers and engineers sending their kids to the top public schools in the nation. Scads of governmental and technological jobs waiting to be filled, good roads, big money for anyone who opens a well-placed store. It isn't necessarily picture-perfect 1950's suburbia throughout, but the spirit of the Cleavers persists in most neighborhoods. And we all remember what an exciting life the Beaver led ... Fairfax is economically successful throughout. But it is culturally flavorless. The fundamental question, Fairfax style: is cultural preservation worth economic stagnation? IV On the extremes, it's a no-win situation. To make our lives as efficient as possible we will simply have to sacrifice the unnecessary fringes. And we should make our lives as efficient as possible, if we want to raise the standard of living ... One solution would be to arrange pageantry, à la Colonial Williamsburg, to preserve what traditions still exist, in some limited sense. But once you've seen William and Mary kids at ye olde smithy telling you that they're cobblers, you question whether the tradition is really being kept alive. The idea is fundamentally flawed; Colonial Williamsburg is just an elaborate show. Nobody involved really believes they're 18th-century tinkers or soldiers or whatever. A slightly grimmer concept along the same lines might involve a contained area full of people who really did believe. In other words, a human zoo, quarantined from the outside world as in The Truman Show. These are not solutions to be taken seriously, I hope. A more realistic solution -- with a touch of liberal idealism, granted -- is to question each new development. Do we really need this? Do we really need our Barnes and Noble or are we just getting too lazy to spend a day browsing many bookstores? Do we really need our Wal-Mart, our Kmart, another McDonald's? Will this Montgomery Ward actually help alleviate poverty and racism in our town, or will it simply cause everyone to dress the same? Will this new highway make life easier for me, or will it just take away public lands beloved by the youth? What I'm suggesting is a democratic check on the progress process. It ain't right to just sit idle and slack-jawed while the devils of development come and tread on your traditions. Likewise it wouldn't be right to absolutely impede all outside influence and improvement on the region. But whatever side you take, that of conservation or that of gung-ho efficiency, the ultimate mistake is to be apathetic. Complacency is the root of all evil. So I won't conclude by telling you which side to support, anthropology or economics. Your motives are your own. But there is a struggle going on, throughout the world. Every day uniformity threatens to destroy the spectacular. You can choose your side, but don't sit idle while your world is corrupted. Get involved. Interfere. Protest. Boycott. I'll admit it is a futile gesture, but I haven't eaten at McDonald's in eight months and I'm not planning on ever eating there again. Must we let Big Macs destroy the pleasures of our local cuisine? Give me a Gusburger any day of the week.

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