A Lima Divided.

Sunday 13 August 2006, on U.S. 20, near Buffalo, New York.

U.S. Highway 20 is the longest road in the United States. It is 3,365 miles long, from Boston to near the Pacific coast in Oregon. It does not exist officially in Yellowstone National Park, not being signed as such there, but it is all the same road in fact.

Traveling along this route is like visiting pre-Interstate America. When they built I-90, which runs generally parallel and a little north of U.S. 20, most of the usual development went with it, leaving U.S. 20 quieter. It has acquired a preservation following similar to U.S. Highway 66 that used to run between Chicago and Los Angeles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_20

One place that shows the old and new well is Lima, New York, about halfway between Buffalo and Albany. When I passed through today, there were yard signs all over town, taking sides in a classic Wal-Mart conflict. Yellow “frowning face’ signs, with $s for eyes, said, “Never in Lima.” They designated the homes and businesses that opposed the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Lima. (As I discovered later, there are 2 or 3 W-M SCs in the villages to the east of Lima.) Then there were green yardsigns all over (somewhat fewer than the yellow ones) that said, “Wal-Mart Means Jobs.”

According to the convenience store clerk I talked to, Lima is divided between (1) the affluent people who love the retro life, the unions and their supporters, the tie-died back-to-naturists, and the small retailers, and (2) the new Hispanics and the other hourly workers who want cheaper prices than are charged by the boutique retailers in this quaint place. Very much a class struggle, it seems, with the unions siding with the more affluent side.

See: The Never In Lima Committee, at http://www.neverinlima.org/ and Lima Citizens for Responsible Development http://www.neverinlima.org/townletters/LCFRDLetter.html