Cusp of Change

Suburbs

 I know suburbs.

I was born in Clifton, a residential section in the City of Cincinnati just north of the University, and lived there my first five years.  Dad was working his way up the television management ladder, so we moved a lot after that. First it was to the suburbs of Detroit for a year, in Bloomfield Village.  Then it was back to Clifton for another two years.  Next Dad went to WLW-D in Dayton, and we moved to suburban Kettering, for five years.  And finally it was back to Cincinnati, this time to Wyoming, a suburb north of town, where I finished out high school.

So while I lived a little in the city, most of my developing years were spent in the suburbs.  When I graduated from Denison University over in Granville, I took a job at Watkins Memorial High School.  At the time I thought Watkins was “in” Pataskala, and Pataskala was “out” in the country. 

Lost Countryside

My mistake.  It was 1978, and the Southwest Licking Schools (the name of the school district where Watkins Memorial is located) still echoed from its cataclysmic beginnings in the 1950’s.  Southwest Licking was a consolidated district, an uncomfortable combination of Etna, Pataskala and Kirkersville Villages schools.  The High School itself was located in Etna Township, and strategically placed almost equidistant from the three early village buildings (2.6 miles from Pataskala school, 2 miles from Etna, 2.5 miles from Kirkersville – it mattered).  And it also included Harrison Township, another governmental entity, which was part of the original Pataskala Schools.

Back then there was still talk about the “Etna” position on the eighth grade boys basketball team, and how Pataskala “kids” were different from Kirkersville “kids”.  Watkins was just ending the era of being a “rural” school.  The Future Farmers of America (FFA), a group that dominates rural high schools, was fading out.  The corn field behind the school, maintained by the FFA, only lasted until the end of the 70’s.  It soon became a practice field, subsumed into the building expansion of the early 80’s.  Southwest Licking was becoming a suburb of Columbus.

Welcome Change

And for a while, the area welcomed the changes.  Roseberry’s Grocery replaced the My Little Market in Pataskala.  Etna Market had great pizza and limited selection.  But soon Cardinals bought out Roseberry’s and built  a true “Super Market”.  The High School marching band played at the opening of McDonald’s on Broad Street in Pataskala, a harbinger of real changes in our community.  

And then Kroger’s came in – plowing under the farm equipment sales place and the fields around it.  With Kroger’s came more mass housing developments and the race was on.  How many residential homes could they build?  How many houses can fit in a single acre of former corn field?  And how will the volunteer fire department (if went professional) and the local police (they expanded) deal with the huge influx of folks?  The Etna Market shrunk to just Etna Pizza, and then closed its doors.

Industrialization

The “Village” of Pataskala merged with a neighboring township – but not Etna or Kirkersville or even Harrison, with their shared old school district.  It merged with Lima Township, with a wholly different school district.  The “City” of Pataskala now split loyalties to two different school systems – Licking Heights and Southwest Licking.  And while the “City” has held off a lot of big industry, Etna Township embraced it full force.

Drive down the National Road – US 40.  Actually, don’t do that right now, they are tearing it up and putting a new road down.  That’s because the number of warehouses (now called “distribution centers”) including the literal miles of Amazon Buildings are attracting thousands of semi-trucks and trailers each day.  They are stressing the roads all around Etna beyond their abilities to hold up.  What used to be some suburban developments surrounded by farm fields are now houses dwarfed by the giant concrete walls of the distribution centers.  Kids on bikes stay in the confines of their developments – there’s no safe crossing of US 40 or State Route 310.

Interstate Service

The nearby interchange of SR 310 and Interstate 70, the subject of rumored development for decades, is finally “blooming”.  It’s not just another McDonalds, a Speedway and a BP.  Now it’s a Love’s Truck Stop, and rumors of a motel and a “better than fast food” restaurant.  The two lanes of SR 310 through old Etna now is four and five.  The old town precariously clings to the expanded edges of the highway, semis roaring through.  Even the old Etna School, long empty of children, is now half gone.  It became unsafe, bricks falling off the walls – and the District tore the “old building” down.  Only the more recent (1930’s, 1960’s) additions are all that’s left.

And what of the remaining farm fields in Etna, and soon Kirkersville?  Their value is so much greater as “developmental” land than as growing fields, it’s almost impossible for farmers to stay.  One large farm will soon be hundreds – that’s hundreds of homes.  All of that traffic will somehow merge onto two-lane country roads, then funnel onto SR 310 – more traffic, more kids in schools, more sewer plants:  more, more, more.

On the Cusp

This community (Etna Township, Pataskala City, Kirkersville Village, and Harrison Township) is on the cusp.  There are the “hard-liners” who moved here to “be in the country”.  But that ship sailed with the end of FFA, and My Little Market – we ARE the suburbs now.  But what will we be next?  Etna has committed to industry AND suburban development.  Pataskala City is more cautious, but covets the tax base that industry brings.  Harrison Township is stubborn – housing only.  And where goes Kirkersville?  No one is sure.

There are still a few farms left.  Facebook explodes when the farmers fertilize their fields (manure) or drive combine harvesters down the road at rush hour.  But their time is ended – and they know it.  We are suburban Columbus, like it or not.  How our multiple communities will deal with the changes: two school districts, two sewer and water districts, and four municipalities, all with conflicting plans and goals – leaves our community “writ-large” at a loss. 

The “cusp of change” looks a lot more like the edge of a cliff, with four different governments arguing whether to hold each other up, or push each other over the side.  But, in the end, they will jump – together or separately. 

 It’s all about the landing.