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Thursday, September 29, 2005
America's Blandness
Letter from Chicago
By Ethan JacobsSome people say that ethnic diversification will be the death of America as we know it.
Don't believe it.
Actually homogenization is killing the America I know and love.
I remember in the '40s and '50s, when Howard Johnson started spreading out from New England into New York and Pennsylvania. People said it was a good thing because you could go there and you always knew what you would get.
Yes - no surprises, just sameness, blandness and mediocrity.
In the late '60s, my wife and I drove our VW from Chicago to Florida. All the way down and all the way back, every single Holiday Inn sign advertised the same roast turkey dinner for $2.19. We didn't eat a single one. We ate scrapple in the Alleghenies, crab cakes on the coast and 'gator nuggets in Florida - made by locals, served by locals and enjoyed by all.
I know the HoJo standardization idea has a sound basis in business theory and has been proven over and over by McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and others. But the theory has been driven to extremes while all the flavor of life has been sacrificed on the altar of the great god efficiency.
When I was going to college in Cambridge in the late '50s and early '60s, one of the exciting things to do was drive all the way to Freeport, Maine, to visit L.L.Bean, which was something really different from Filene's in Boston.
In the mid-'60s, when I took my first business trip, I was in Houston and asked my colleague's wife what local thing I could take back as a gift for my wife. She suggested "anything from Neiman Marcus." My wife and I still remember the lovely white blouse with embroidered Texas bluebonnets I was able to give her.
Nowadays you can shop at Bean, Filene's or Neiman without leaving your computer terminal. Where is the novelty in that? Does that make life any richer? Or does it only make Bean, Filene's and Neiman richer?
Which is the whole point of this letter. Yes, in the name of standardization, efficiency, brand recognition and, thus, increased profit, Federated Department Stores can change Marshall Field's into Macy's and get rid of the green bags and awnings, but will Chicago, or America, or the world be richer for it?
No, we will all be poorer for it. In the long run even the Federated shareholders will be poorer for it - if they have souls as well as pocketbooks.
You see, homogenization is good for milk, but it's not good for a country, or for life.
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Posted by fm on September 29, 2005 at 12:08 AM