Temu America

Medicine Hat is a delightful city on the Saskatchewan border. If I'd turned left, I'd be in Swift Current by now. But no, Google Maps said I had arrived at my destination. So here I am.

I don't not love Medicine Hat. But I will say, it's a different place, and also the same place I'm used to. My next sentence will make some people mad.

It feels like "{dick fingers}Anywhere, North America{/dick fingers}."

What do I mean? Every quadrant has the same chain stores and the same awful parking lots, designed for cars that never want to see home again. I see this in a lot of small towns, and in the "communities" tucked inside the bigger ones. We build for maximum commerce-ing.

It's gross. Let's stop pretending it isn't.

The suburbs are a disease. Back when we lived in Kensington, I was the happiest and healthiest I've ever been. I'd walk out my door early in the morning, stroll down Kensington Road, wave at shopkeepers, hang out for a minute or three to help pull in the night's delivery, and carry on my way.

Small towns got swallowed up. Mom-and-pop shops can't survive against the MAXIMUM BUYING POWER OF THE CONGLOMERATE. The best pizza in Medicine Hat is Papa Johns. Really? This makes me sad. Papa Johns is fine. It's not anywhere near, say, a Nikos. But it is the BEST in Medicine Hat.

We need to recalibrate.

In BC, the housing market keeps the big builders afloat, even though hardly anyone can afford what they're building except more corporations. We're in a stranglehold.

We say we aren't. But I can't help feeling like we are. A knockoff of a knockoff. We can do better.