Has your hometown changed a lot in your lifetime?

Not much. I grew up around Gresham/Portland, OR. I’m actually afraid to go back for economic reasons.

I go there a couple of times a year. The biggest changes have been the additions of: WalMart, a Microtel Inn, another Lutheran church, a Tim Horton’s, a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Taco Bell, a Rite-Aid, and a couple of new streets. Main Street was declared a “historic district” and many of the store fronts have gotten much needed facelifts. The high school got new energy efficient windows. The gold course got a new clubhouse. (The third in about 50-ish years.) The people who bought the house in which I grew up took down the dying maple tree in the front yard.

It’s a nice town, though I’ve heard there are now issues with meth labs and heroin trafficking. How big those issues are I don’t really know.

For the purposes of this discussion, I will call my hometown where I am living now. I last lived here 40 years ago. While there are recognizable landmarks, the growth has been transforming. Not necessarily for the better either.

Hometown 1: It’s expanded, bigtime. It’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country and the area where I lived, specifically, which was once sort of isolated is now surrounded by new development. Other than that, it’s the same old hot and dry city of sin.

Hometown 2: Still quiet and ritzy; new houses, but still no commercial places. Not much change.

I live what used to be a very rural part of Washington state. My grandmother moved here from Bavaria somewhere around the ‘50s, and there was the local high school (that I now go to), her small street of houses, a large evergreen forest, and some farmland. Period.

My mother (who had already been married when my grandmother moved) moved here around the ‘80s after my father got out of the military. There were maybe 4–6 streets of houses, a small shopping plaza (a grocery store, hardware store and a gas station, all family owned) a mile away, and the rest was all the same.

When I was born in the ‘90s, our street had become part of a decent-sized neighborhood, still bordered on a forest, and had some new, bigger roads, though there were still farms within walking distance.

Now, not even two decades later, there is no forest, and all the farmland has been sold out and turned into housing developments with no backyards (that have no occupants because of the economy), massive industrial warehouses and plants and empty land covered in scrub brush because no one wants land next to an ugly warehouse off a busy, loud, and dangerous road. The road off our neighborhood is packed with cars 24/7. People get into accidents on each end of it practically daily (you can hear sirens screaming, especially at night), and all the family-owned businesses like grocery stores and pet stores and restaurants have been put out of business because of chains like Fred Meyer’s, Walmart, and McDonald’s. There is no evergreen forest or farmland within a 5 mile radius.

It’s sad, really. The young kids here don’t have a place to hang out or play—it’s all eaten up by suburbia and empty houses and land with “no trespassing” signs.

I was born in Oakland in the 50’s. I remember the beginnings of the Black Panters and the Hells Angels. I saw the Symbian Liberation Army kill Marcus Foster (the head of the board of education), then kidnap Patty Hearst. I remember when the Oakland Raiders were pretty new, and when the Oakland A’s came from Kansas City.
Oakland is much more dangerous now. I lived there till 1988, and worked there till 1997. I still occasionally work there, and my daughter lives there, but I rarely go there anymore.
I still think there are wonderful aspects of the city, but drugs and unemployment have taken an awful toll.

No, not really. Some parts have improved but the parts that were bad when I was little got worse, then better and now for years they just seem to remain timeless. Old 150–200 year old houses, old cracked sidewalks, HUGE oak trees… It was quite cozy but I only lived there until I was 7

then after that, before I turned 18 I had moved 13 more times and a few more after that to total probably about 25 times that I have lived all over the place.

*No, no army brat… Crazy disfunctional idiot parents.

My old town now has two Wal-Marts, and several old houses were torn down for gas stations. Many small businesses are gone. Everything seems more gray and industrial.

Nashville has always been a city on the grow. I remember when the interstate first began its construction, back in the mid-60s. It was amazing as to how one big interstate system could connect cities and states throughout America. I watched the roads change, the drivers attitudes change, and automobiles change, because of the interstate system.

I watched my city grow from an oversized country town into a sprawling city, almost equal to Atlanta. I have watched the population increasingly grow from people ousted from their hometowns because of lack of jobs and crime. They move to Nashville for various reasons and the weather probably tops the list. We have more sunshine than the State of Florida.

I have watched malls take the place of downtwon stores. I have watched how the internet has dramatically increased our realm of knowledge and communication. I was there when my police department received its first computer. We had to learn a new way of conducting business with the public.

I have watched the speed limit on the interstate go down from 70 mph to 55 mph, in order to conserve gasoline for the nation. I never thought this was a real situation and most drivers did not obey that order anyway. I have watched the long lines at gasoline stations, where gas was almost rationed.

I have lived through six mayors in my city. Most have either retired or died, but I am still here. Makes me wonder why?

I have lived a great life and would not have changed a thing.

I went back to my roots recently and it was the same in parts, and totally different in other ways. Apparently it is very rough around there now. The people I knew who lived there have gone. The shops I used to shop in have been demolished and my infant and high schools. So quite a few changes.