Richardcyoung.com

  • Home
  • Debbie Young
  • Jimmy Buffett
  • Key West
  • Your Survival Guy
  • How We Are Different
  • Paris
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • Dick Young
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool
  • Anti-Gun Control
  • Anti-Digital Currency
  • Joel Salatin & Alfie Oakes
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • Fidelity & Wellington Since 1971
  • Hillsdale College
  • Babson College
  • Contact Us

Can Small Town America Be Saved?

October 12, 2018 By Richard C. Young

The American Conservative recently printed a version of a speech given by Bill Kauffmann. He was speaking at “Revitalizing Jackson’s Main Street,” an event held by The American Conservative in Jackson, Michigan in September. Kauffmann is a prolific author, and in his book Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette, he focuses on small town America. In his speech he outlined the prospect for revitalizing small towns. He said (abridged):

In 2003 I published a book called Dispatches From the Muckdog Gazette, which is, megalomaniacally, a memoir about my repatriation to Batavia, but it’s also about the way that Batavia—and by extension all the Batavias from sea to dimming sea—has struggled to maintain a distinct identity, a character, rather than becoming just another formless wattle on the continental blob.

I don’t know how much anyone here knows of Batavia. Batavia was a prosperous little city, manufactory of combines and tractors and shotguns. English and Scots and Germans were the early settlers, coexisting uneasily with the late 19th-century polyglot influx of Italians and Poles.

In some ways we were a typical small American city but in other ways we were “Batavia”—our own place. We did not yet bow down before the new American royalty: Burger King and Dairy Queen.

Then, as Joseph Heller would say, something happened. Batavia tore out its five-block heart and filled the cavity with a ghastly mall….

So what do you do when your small city has been leveled by well-meaning but fatuous city fathers who can’t resist the lure of “free” federal money?

There are many ways of going, as a poet who lived in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, once said. In the new issue of The American Conservative, which you are sitting on, I write about my friend Tim Tielman, the charismatic urban geographer who has done so much to revitalize Buffalo.

Joseph Ellicott, who at the beginning of the 19th century founded both Buffalo and Batavia, remarked, “God made Buffalo; I will try and make Batavia. In any event, Tim and many others are now doing God’s work in Buffalo

As for Batavia….I am of the old Thoreauvian school that distrusts big political solutions. It was the federal government that demolished our little city, so I don’t turn first to the federal government to rebuild it.

DIY, as the old punk rock ethos went. Do it yourself. And across America, from Grand River Brewery to Front Porch Republic Books, people are doing it themselves.

Read more here.

Originally posted October 11, 2017.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Norman Rockwell a Small-Town America Classic
  • Big Government and Globalism: Small Town America in Despair
  • VIDEO: Let America Be America Again
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.
Richard C. Young
Latest posts by Richard C. Young (see all)
  • Will Iran Split MAGA Forever? - June 18, 2025
  • Magnesium and Your Health - June 18, 2025
  • Trump Demands Unconditional Surrender from Iran - June 18, 2025

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • To Me There Isn’t a Better Way to Live
  • Rich Grandchild, Poor Grandchild
  • The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope
  • Are You Prepared to Run Out of Water?
  • Who Is Alex Jones?
  • “If Only I’d Followed Dick Young’s Advice Sooner”
  • A Word or Two about Your Survival Guy’s Money
  • What Would Kennan Say about Ukraine/Russia?
  • When Is the Best Time for You to Do This?
  • Fireside Chat: Dick Young and Your Survival Guy

Our Most Popular Posts

  • The Night of the Living Dead
  • TRUMP: "Everyone Should Immediately Evacuate Tehran!"
  • Are You Familiar with the EF and Arithmetic?
  • A Classic Issue from Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report
  • Political Theater on Display: Padilla's Wild Day
  • A Nationwide Day of Defiance
  • Best Bang for Your Buck: Top 5 AR-15s of 2025
  • Epic Man Cave with Car Elevator in Utah
  • Israelis Speculate on American Involvement in War with Iran
  • GBU-57/B: Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

Compensation was paid to utilize rankings. Click here to read full disclosure.

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report from Feb. 1987
  • A Great Victory for Liberty
  • Letchworth: Are You Living Your Best Retirement Life?
  • Job Openings Rise in Four States, National Rate Steady
  • Ethane Shipments Stall as U.S.-China Trade Tensions Rise
  • Historic Tax Cuts Across All States
  • Are You Familiar with the EF and Arithmetic?
  • Canadian Shipbuilder Targets U.S. Arctic Contracts
  • Israel-Iran Conflict Triggers Freight Rate Surge and Maritime Caution
  • US Export Prices Drop Sharply in May

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report from Feb. 1987
  • Private Equity Is the Next Big Thing Coming for YOU
  • The Wildlife in Kansas
  • PRECIOUS: Silver and Gold
  • June Rage Gauge: Best Déjeuners in Paris
  • Letchworth: Are You Living Your Best Retirement Life?
  • Will SALT Kill the “One Big Beautiful Bill?”
  • You’ve Read the Last Issue of Intelligence Report: Back to Investor’s Yield
  • The Sound of Silence?
  • Are You Familiar with the EF and Arithmetic?

US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

My Key West Garden Office

Your Retirement Life: Traveling the Efficient Frontier

Live a Long Life

Your Survival Guy’s Mt. Rushmore of Investing Legends

“Then One Day the Grandfather was Gone”

Copyright © 2025 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives