I'm old enough to remember when there was a REAL variety to society. Where, if one needed furniture they went to a store that specialized primarily in selling tables, chairs, couches...or if one wanted to purchase a good Hi-Fi or stereo system they went to an audio store, or one that specialized in electronic appliances (i.e.: everything from refrigerators to televisions to vacuum cleaners to stereo units)...if they needed tools or hammers or screw drivers they would go to a hardware store to buy them...if they bought records there were record stores.
Granted, there were also department stores that sold these items as well, but often either they were "low-end" products or their selections were limited.
These days all the small businesses and specialty stores are being displaced by all these "WalMarts" and others of their ilk. They would want everyone to find their niche products at one of these "one-size-fits-all"
mega-marts. Out the window goes all the specialty shops along with all the knowledgable clerks who would know said products inside-and-out...not to mention also the substantial variety of brands of such products those types of stores afforded.
I also remember the various freedom-of-choice aspects society used to have...
For example, if one needed a place to live, but couldn't afford a house and also fell short of the requirements necessary for meeting the qualifications for renting an apartment, there were always the "flop houses" or motel rooms that rented on a weekly basis. There were also rooming houses as well.
But, alas...they've been shutting these places down one by one over the years, allegedly due to the way such places attract "questionable" personality types and the way such places seem to be "magnets" for all sorts of criminal activities.
Of course in the process of shutting such places down, that also means that a lot of good people who would have trouble obtaining a place-of-residence in a normal manner---due to, perhaps, a lack of local social ties, or because they "don't make enough money" to qualify, or because of an arrest record, or maybe they're a bit eccentric---will, anymore, risk being left out in the cold or becoming homeless because all of these flophouses and cheap weekly rooms are being torn down and replaced by exotic high-priced luxury apartments affordable to only the top-salary upper-echelon types.
Just as is the case with modern-day merchandising, modern-day housing is also losing all the "escape route" aspects that made it possible for those of us "who could never have the same success doing things the 'normal' 'appropriate' or 'correct' way that most people do" to have our own minor small-scale "successes"---to at least have a place of our own to live and a few personal possessions of our own, as one example.
American society is becoming more and more one reserved "for the overpriveleged only"
...and also becoming more and more monolithic as well.
Granted, there were also department stores that sold these items as well, but often either they were "low-end" products or their selections were limited.
These days all the small businesses and specialty stores are being displaced by all these "WalMarts" and others of their ilk. They would want everyone to find their niche products at one of these "one-size-fits-all"
mega-marts. Out the window goes all the specialty shops along with all the knowledgable clerks who would know said products inside-and-out...not to mention also the substantial variety of brands of such products those types of stores afforded.
I also remember the various freedom-of-choice aspects society used to have...
For example, if one needed a place to live, but couldn't afford a house and also fell short of the requirements necessary for meeting the qualifications for renting an apartment, there were always the "flop houses" or motel rooms that rented on a weekly basis. There were also rooming houses as well.
But, alas...they've been shutting these places down one by one over the years, allegedly due to the way such places attract "questionable" personality types and the way such places seem to be "magnets" for all sorts of criminal activities.
Of course in the process of shutting such places down, that also means that a lot of good people who would have trouble obtaining a place-of-residence in a normal manner---due to, perhaps, a lack of local social ties, or because they "don't make enough money" to qualify, or because of an arrest record, or maybe they're a bit eccentric---will, anymore, risk being left out in the cold or becoming homeless because all of these flophouses and cheap weekly rooms are being torn down and replaced by exotic high-priced luxury apartments affordable to only the top-salary upper-echelon types.
Just as is the case with modern-day merchandising, modern-day housing is also losing all the "escape route" aspects that made it possible for those of us "who could never have the same success doing things the 'normal' 'appropriate' or 'correct' way that most people do" to have our own minor small-scale "successes"---to at least have a place of our own to live and a few personal possessions of our own, as one example.
American society is becoming more and more one reserved "for the overpriveleged only"
...and also becoming more and more monolithic as well.
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