I read in today’s Arizona Daily Sun the sad news that another locally-owned Flagstaff business, Emily’s Furniture, is closing its retail store and will be operating its business only via the internet.  It’s sad because it’s happening more and more frequently.  A number of locally-owned Flagstaff businesses, including my own, have found that the internet is the only cost-effective way to remain in business.  The only party store in Flagstaff, Confetti’s, has already announced that they will be closing their large retail storefront in the Safeway-Walgreen’s shopping center in East Flagstaff and will be offering a more limited inventory on their website, www.partysupplies4less.com, and through a much smaller  local office space.

When I first moved to Flagstaff in 1979, the downtown area was still a viable shopping area for local residents.  There were strip malls being built in other parts of town including the K-Mart shopping center and Bayless shopping center in East Flagstaff and the brand new University shopping center in West Flagstaff.  Santa Fe Avenue (which has since lost its name and has been identified merely as Route 66) and Milton Road were the site of  stores, motels, and restaurants.

But the downtown area still housed shoe stores, jewelry stores, book stores, clothing stores and restaurants  frequented regularly by local shoppers.  Babbitt’s Department Store was the “big store” then and was known statewide as one of the best department stores in the state.  This was a time when the owners knew their best customers by name and customer service was a priority.  Moving from rural California, even I was amazed at how friendly the clerks were in the Bayless grocery store.

But the building of the Flagstaff Mall and influx of large corporate-owned “big box type stores” signaled the end of shopping and living in Flagstaff as we once knew it.  There are those — including the Chamber of Commerce and City Fathers — who tell us that this transition is essential to Flagstaff’s economy and survival.  But they don’t mention the trade-offs involved as the town has slowly transitioned from a unique community to a generic one.

For those of us who have lived here long enough to see the transition and who care about the quality of life in this place we call home, the view of the Chamber and the City Fathers is one of those things that becomes a muddy gray when you mix black and white. 

Downtown Flagstaff is no longer a place for locals to shop but is a tourist destination as they travel through town on their way to other cities that look much the same.  This transition of the downtown area has a history as well.  Parking has always been a problem in downtown Flagstaff, and as the town grew, parking problems grew as well.  This signaled a definite need for outlying shopping areas with large paved parking lots.  They came.  They met the need and the downtown area slowly deteriorated until the City began a downtown revitalization project.  Instead of more street parking, the project removed parking spaces and provided less.  Increasing rents and lack of parking forced the businesses that depended on local customers to either move to these outlying shopping areas or, what happened more frequently, to close their doors.  They have gradually been replaced by “boutique type shops”, “tourist souvenier stores”, and bars.  Lots and lots of bars.  The transition is now complete as just another tourist stopping point on their way to somewhere else.

Even the Flagstaff Mall was once filled with unique locally-owned stores but that too has changed.  It, too, has transitioned from a local mall to a generic one.  You can walk through the mall now and feel as if you are visiting a mall in any other city in any other state.  We’ve been told that tourists, snow birds, and weekend visitors from Phoenix, like the familiar while trying to get away from it.  If so, they now have it.

Unfortunately, there is no answer.  The transition has been made and will continue until it is complete as more and more of the small independent businesses, located in Flagstaff, either close their doors or make their own transition to becoming an internet business.  The very things that made Flagstaff unique — Route 66, the railroad, the small mountain university and even the mountain — are transitioning as well.  The university is overpowering the historic brick buildings and the feel of a small mountain university with a massive, ugly convention center.  The Route 66, that has attracted people from across the globe, is transitioning into just another generic street through town.  Global warming has resulted in less snow, dying ponderosas, and less vivid leaves in the fall. 

I’m not suggesting that we go back to the “old days”.  Of course that would be impossible and would involve trade-offs as well.  Growth can’t be stopped and I’m not sure that we would want to.  But I am sad to see the changes wrought by the transition from a uniquely different Flagstaff to a generic one.  And I am sad to see those businesses–where you could find products that weren’t available at every other store–fade away.