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The West still has its snow-covered and picturesque mountains and seemingly endless plains. It is indeed an inspiring country.
A lot of this ugliness, excluding the feedlots and dairies, is due to desertion and degradation as small towns throughout the West have undergone population declines and seen the economy hit bottom. Much of this, in turn, is caused by dependence on natural resources that have been quickly extracted, as the rosy promises become the dust from deserted mine tailings. The West is still on a boom and bust cycle. I have seen both sides of this in my travels: Large, booming cities fueled by seemingly un-Western, high-tech industries next to decrepit, once-large towns that depended on now-outdated and defunct businesses. But one thing became clear as I visited areas where the term "blighted" is optimistic. No matter how degraded, deprived or even downright butt-ugly an area is, the local citizens are proud to call it home. They are also furiously protective of their backyards, no matter how cluttered or filled with junk. I’ll leave the towns and areas unnamed, but some of the small towns and rural areas I have been in are just flat depressing. To me, it seems only natural that people who live there should be likewise depressed. On the contrary, I found, almost without exception, that people are upbeat, cheerful, and always willing to overlook the bleak and focus on the upbeat. One theme was consistent throughout the West: there is a strong tradition of populism. The people don’t trust big business, particularly if Big Business is from somewhere else. Large corporations promoting livestock confinement operations, Wall Street, men in pin-striped suits, and developers with no suits and no discernible stripes, are viewed with disgust bordering on hostility that occasionally erupts into anger, even violence. Local people, of course, have good reason for this. They have heard the false promises of the past. They have seen what happens when someone from "outside" comes in and pledges that their plan, project, or development will bring jobs, prosperity and put a chicken (or pig) in every pot. What has happened in the past, and is happening now, is that such outsiders come in, take the money and run. As Ross Perot (remember him?) phrased it, their departure is accompanied by a "giant sucking sound." Unfortunately, there are those elected or appointed officials in the local, blighted communities who choose to believe that large corporations have the best interest of the community at heart. Of course, it also helps if the politico’s palm gets greased, or if his or her business stands to gain from the proposed plan. But the local citizenry won’t stand for such chicanery – they are increasingly demanding that tax subsidies, tax increment financing, and "special breaks for special people" not be awarded. Too many publicly financed projects have gone down the tubes, leaving more debris, more derelict equipment, more pits filled with toxic waters or feces, and more junk as reminders of hollow promises. What’s left are pockets of poverty, laced with poisons. I have visited places of desperation. That was part of my purpose. But, even in such places, the mood is upbeat and protective. They may not have much, but by golly, they’re not gonna let some Fat Cat from "back East" take away what little they do have. No matter how blighted or degraded, it’s their backyard, and they’re going to keep it the way it is. And, if anybody is going to make it better, it’ll be them. --Ken Midkiff Up to Top |
For the past several weeks, as chronicled in these reports from the road, I have been on a tour of the West, eventually ending up on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. My travels took me to Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and California. On the way home, I traveled through Arizona and then back through some of the states previously visited. 
But it’s also filled with ugliness. Junk yards, mining and oil-drilling debris, jumbled dug-up lands, run-down shacks, backyards filled with old derelict cars, and dairy, hog, chicken and beef feedlots filled with teeming animals and manure – it’s all there among the purple mountain majesties and fruited plains.