Tonight I was browsing twitter, I do that sometimes because I assume no one else does. I feel like it’s a room of people shouting, no one listening, and frankly, I’m the wall-flower type. Anyhow, I saw a tweet about Frito Pie, Barbecue, and fish tacos making their way to New York City. Now I’m not naive enough to think that fish tacos and Barbecue came from Texas, but the tweet did happen to be from an annoyed Texan that thought these culinary treats belonged to the Lonestar state alone. Frito pie however, I had not even heard of until moving to the big state, and the thought of it infiltrating the north got me thinking. Is there anything that is geographically unique?
Bigger companies will always want to grow, so I didn’t even spend any brain power trying to think of the fortune 500′s that were secluded in one section of the world. Instead I tried to think of a local business that was only in my home city. I narrowed it down to tiny businesses that needed to be operated by humans. If there was a product that could be ordered I ruled it out. This mostly leaves services and small restaurants. I somehow stumbled upon a Photo Booth company called Flicker Stage. They rent photo booths throughout the Dallas area, and the service requires an attendant. Surely this business is local. After some digging, I found that even the tiny Flicker Stage business was operating in multiple cities with plans to expand.
What is the effect this universal globalization is having on our cities is a loss of identity. Downtown areas are becoming sparse. The sidewalks are empty, there are no street level businesses and not even much in the way of downtown residents. To find the people you are forced to the outskirts, where you find all signs of life heading into the local Bonefish, Waffle House, or Applebees. I guess it’s nice to know that on any of the identical four lane thoroughfares throughout the U.S. you can almost guess where the next Best Buy, Target, and Home Depot will be. But at what cost? Personality, there is an extreme lack of personality, or even noticeable landmarks among the U.S. cities. This is also effecting the people, a bunch of boring clones of humans, that think Italian food is what you get at the Olive Garden, and that an exotic sports car is a Camaro.
I hope that in my lifetime, I see a balance struck between the convenience and economy of globalization, but also a strong proliferation of small businesses, if for nothing else, to give people a reason to visit a city that is not their own.
Posted in: Photography | Tags: flicker stage, photo booth, rent photo booths