Village Life
It appears history is starting to go backwards. We are returning to the village structure that existed before the automobile became so common.
With automobiles came the freedom to go anywhere one wanted at anytime. Gasoline was cheap and people started ranging much farther away from home than they had in the past. It took a lot of effort to hitch a horse up to a buggy or to saddle a horse and go shopping or visiting someone many miles away.
I can’t imagine that many people would have bothered to ride a horse several hundred miles just to go ‘sight-seeing’ either.
Now that the price of fuel and gasoline have risen to such high levels, people are becoming more conscious of the cost of that freedom.
We are returning to the village of structure. That is, we are willing to pay more money to buy a product that is closer to home than we have been in the past. I am now willing to spend a $1.79 for a package of screws at the local hardware store rather than driving the extra miles to buy them for fifty cents less.
The return of the village grocery store is now assured. The supermarkets may find sales decreasing. When the supermarkets began in the late 40’s and were able to buy products at a much lower price because of the quantity they were buying they were able to charge less money than the village stores. They may find that they will have to reduce their prices even more because people will consider the cost of gasoline to get to their stores.
We have arrived at an unusual and unexpected event in our economic structure.
