A cautionary tale...

To the editor,
The year: sometime in the not so near future. Tommy and his Grandmother are working on his history homework.
Tommy: "Grandma, the next question concerns Orange, Va., but I cannot locate it on my map. What happened to Orange, Virginia?"
Grandma: "Well, Tommy it's a long story. My mother used to tell me stories about growing up in Orange, Virginia. She would talk about going to the movie theatre and the drive in. You could purchase just about anything you needed in Orange. There were places to shop for clothes. They had three grocery stores (Safeway, A&P and Sparks Grocery). You could buy things like thread and material to make things. People would stop and talk with you on the streets. Oh, she used to talk about how wonderful it was to live in Orange. When the kids graduated from high school, most of them stayed in Orange, worked in Orange, made their homes there and raised their families.
"I remember her telling me it all started sometime in the 1990s and the early 2000s, when it seemed that every time a new business wanted to come to town, the planning commission, the town council or the board of supervisors decided it was not right for Orange. They decided that it would bring the wrong class of people to town. They wanted to keep things rural. They did not want the town to grow. I remember as a kid walking down Main Street, the only thing you would see on Main Street were empty buildings or office buildings. About this same time, Food Lion was the only grocery store in town. During the year 2009, several of the factories closed their doors and some of the small stores went out of business. You would hear everyone saying 'Shop Orange,' but there was no where to shop. Most people ended up going to Culpeper, Charlottesville or Fredericksburg to do their shopping. The communities surrounding Orange continued to grow. Culpeper opened several shopping centers. Louisa opened new stores and built a large shopping center near Zion Crossroads. Every time a new business tried to come to Orange, someone on the planning commission, town council or board of supervisors decided that is not right for us: 'We want to keep Orange rural.' 'We do not want to allow the big box stores to come to Orange.' 'We do not want to allow any new developments to come to Orange.' 'We are happy just the way we are.'
"In 2009, Orange County High School graduated around 360 kids and not many stayed in Orange. They had to leave the town to find decent jobs and to shop. They decided that if they need to leave Orange to work they may as well live in the community they're working in.
"Walmart tried several times to open a store in Orange, but all everyone was concerned about was the battlefield. They passed an ordinance that only allowed certain size stores. The main reason for the ordinance was to keep the big box stores out of the town. That was the reason Walmart had to get special permission to build. This also kept other businesses from coming to the town. While all this bickering was going on, the other communities continued to grow, until, eventually Orange became a ghost town. No one chose to live in Orange because there was no place to shop and no place to work."
Tommy: "Wow! No wonder I cannot locate Orange on the map. This map does not list ghost towns."
Grandma: "You are right, Tommy."
I know the above story was made up and there will be lots of people who will say that this may never happen. But take a look around you. I was on Main Street this past Sunday morning and between the light and the railroad track, there are at least three stores that are empty. Open your eyes!
Joyce Sprouse
Orange