Napa Valley: Depressed Small Town America?

When I was growing up, our family literally took a trip every year to "the Boonies" - my grandparents lived in a ramshackle three-story home on the banks of the Missouri River in a town called, no joke, Boonville. It was a small town without a lot going on - there was a half-price theater showing only family-friendly fare, a five-and-dime store, a fabric shop that also sold cltohes, a pharmacy/ice cream shop, and at the end of the string of retail, the bridge over the river, which my brother and I would dare each other to walk out on for fun. Giant oak trees, many of them over a hundred, dominated the streets and yards. As the years went by, more and more of those mom-and-pop stores closed, and the town began feeling like a ghost of its former self. A few more years, and a huge flood wiped out a lot of the housing and retail.

Napa's downtown feels a little bit sad these days, with quickly-built condos and retail space sitting empty month after month, grand Copia sitting unused as its gardens, unmaintained, grow overrun with weeds. Right now the vines are still bare, and the spring has started showing up in scattered tulips in yards, a clump of daffodils here and there. The Mustard Festival went on last weekend, and we drove by the festivities without stopping, where a band played, a tiny few booths of restaurants and art exhibitors made the most of the sunny weather and plied their wares. We hoped it would help the frail local economy. It seems so incongruous that a place where the local resort hotels can charge upwards of $500 - and a facial at the local spa might cost $175 - that the locals might be struggling to keep their cupcake shops, their toy stores, or their bookstores open. The storefronts are plastered with "Everything On Sale!" signs. Where you can buy $150 bottles of wine at the grocery store, but most of the locals are clipping coupons and waiting for their milk or eggs to go on sale. Wealthy tourist numbers dwindle, and the impact is felt everywhere. Small towns, whether on the coast or in the midwest, feel the immediate pains of the recession sharply - maybe the margins aren't as good when there aren't as many people, maybe towns that have relied too heavily on one or two industries - a steel mill or the wine trade - are suffering disproportiately. I've become fond of Napa, though it seems steeped in a sad nostalgia for former glory.