The bridge into Longview - Anytown USA

On the morning of Saturday, December 5, shortly before your weekly photograph was being posted, Theo and I sat in a funky Pancake House in the mill town of Longview, Washington. We’d been invited there by our hosts, who’d lived in Longview for decades. One owned and ran a cute pub and the other was a Pulitzer winning journalist who’d cut her teeth covering the Mt. St Helen’s eruption in the 1980s.

The Pancake House was as you’d expect it to be. Jammed with dozens of large locals, many of whose jobs revolved around the resource industry. The parking lot was jammed with pick-up trucks. The locals tended to be overweight and jolly. Everyone was on a first name basis. The menu was classic Americana – bacon, eggs, pigs in a blanket, eggs benny, and “roll ups” (similar to crepes). Folks were friendly and seemed relatively upbeat, despite the economic ruin that was slowly befalling the whole town.

At one time, Longview had been a bustling place full of dreams. It was founded by a timber baron from Kansas who nearly bankrupted himself trying to create the perfect planned city. Like Washington DC, the whole town is arranged like spokes on a bicycle, with all roads leading to the centre of town prominently dominated by the aging hotel and library. Not unlike many other American and Canadian cities, the faltering of timbre prices hasn’t helped locals. As prices have dropped and environmental awareness of animals like the spotted owl has risen, companies like Weyerhauser and Longview Fibre have been forced to shed high-paying jobs. The current recession is the nail in the coffin.

Still, things go on. People survive. They shop at Walmart, Home Depot and the plethora of other big box stores that have obliterated downtown and turned covered malls into outdoor parking lots surrounded by cheap outlets (when I asked one of my hosts about why covered malls were no longer popular, he replied that nowadays people just wanted to drive there car up to the front of their store, buy everything they needed and leave with the minimum walking required). People eat at Applebees or, if they’re looking to save money, Taco Time or McDonalalds. For dinner parties they don’t buy Brie, Blue Cheese, or Smoked Gouda. They buy Tillicum Cheddar. For a night out they enjoy having drinks and pizza at their local cinemas (that’s right, you can get a pitcher and a pizza and the movies down there). On the drive home in the evening, it’s hard to miss religious scriptures on billboards around the area or, as Christmas approaches, over-the-top religious displays of Jesus in the manger, adorning select lawns. In the evening, when they flip on the TV, it’s hard to miss the irate American boosterism of the FOX news channel. All of this is a defining characteristic of a community, which stretches from sea to sea. But it isn’t the only national community that connects citizens of the United States.

Clyde Common - the usual trendy Portland eatery.

Eight hours after our meal at the Pancake House, Theo and I sat in a small bistro some 40 miles away, located in downtown Portland, Oregon. The name of the place was Clyde Common. It was hipster central. The menu was something out of a foodie magazine with extra shades of pretentiousness. We ordered the pork belly, chicken liver and taglietelle and chanterelle pasta. It was an alright (though the chicken liver was a solid 1 1/2 star out of 5) meal. We sat perched on a balcony above dozens of daintily clad professionals. They drank Sunrise cocktails (not Bud) and certainly a quarter at least were vegetarian. These were the type who watched CNN for their news and scorned FOX as sensationalist right wing propaganda. They drove Japanese sedans and lived in condos, travelling from grocery store to home by bike. Everyone had (the appearance of) money and at least a bachelors degree.

It was all a major contrast to the America we had been in the morning before. While there’s always been differences between country folk and city slickers, it was startling to see just how big of a difference there is. The glue like (like using the same currency, swearing to the same Constitution, and watching the same football teams battle it out year after year) still binds. But will it continue to bind the nation together in the longterm? Fissures to national commonality (critical to any “national community”) seem to only be growing deeper, as each side is increasingly isolated by its own philosophies, values, traditions, and media.

While Canada certainly has it’s own gaps between rural and urban folks, they never struck me as sharply as that witnessed down South. I only wonder what the consequences of this will be for the future of the United States.