Word: small-town
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...preview of what life may one day be like for others toying with the same idea. To understand how these expectations are playing out in one small town that's climbing the growth curve, TIME looked at dozens of towns with expanding economies and populations ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 (anything smaller is a village, anything bigger a city), then spent several weeks in Wilmington--and discovered that cherished notions of small-town life are colliding with the reality of an America that's changing with dizzying speed, even in such quiet places off the beaten track...
That success story landed Wilmington in a 1995 book called The 100 Best Small Towns in America, but as its population has grown from 11,000 in 1990 to more than 13,000 today, the town began getting metropolitan headaches: unplanned development, relentless traffic (36,000 vehicles roll through town every day, 5,000 of them trucks), crime and drugs--even a crack house and a youth-gang problem. Newcomers and old-timers are seeing their visions of small-town life clash, with cultural battles erupting in school-board and city-council meetings. "I moved here because I wanted...
...specializes in books about Ohio--Chamberlain became involved in a crusade to create a downtown shopping-and-entertainment zone. Mayor Eveland and the city council liked the idea, but never came up with a way to finance it. The activists also tried to persuade Eveland to join an innovative small-town renewal program called the National Main Street Center (see box), battled his plan to raze a historic downtown block to make room for a new City Hall, and fought to save a soaring Italianate school building from demolition--but they lost all those fights. The affable Eveland, 49, whose...
...they no longer think so. Their oldest child, Jeremy, was an apathetic student who fell in with underachievers at the high school. But because Jeremy wasn't a troublemaker, says Rick, the guidance counselors never noticed him. The more Leslie tried to interest her children in her idea of small-town pastimes--board games in the parlor, gingerbread houses at Christmas--the more Jeremy wanted to dye his hair purple and turn up his stereo. Wilmington is as saturated with pop culture as the next place; Jeremy's interests ran to rap music and cartoon art, and he dropped...
...Wilmington newcomers who come closest to fulfilling their small-town dreams are those who don't get sucked into local politics--people who create their own sanctuaries amid the farmland and maintain their good humor come what may. Paul Rice and Karin Dahl were just moving into their new home on 100 acres near Wilmington when a police car came bouncing down their driveway. A Clinton County deputy sheriff climbed out of the car to meet them and seemed to react oddly because their last names weren't the same. Dahl felt the need to clarify. "We're married...