Sometimes cities have identity crises. I’m sure it happens for a lot of reasons, though a common one might be colliding values exerted through businesses, buildings, and community activities. My current hometown, Provo, seems to be in the midst of just such a crisis.
Earlier today Laura and I went looking for some drum equipment and decided to check the local pawnshops for deals. While (surprisingly) there are pawnshops all over Provo, they’re actually concentrated on Center Street between 4th and 5th West (which is even more surprising to me). Walking from store to store I couldn’t help but notice the kind of environment that prevailed on this block. While I don’t like to disparage local enterprise, the area seemed dirty, run down, and seedy because of the kinds of businesses that it housed. Of the three pawnshops, at least one (and maybe all) doubled as a payday loan business (the filthy dregs of capitalism, in my opinion). The most legitimate businesses on the block were the City Limits bar (an inevitably marginalized place given Provo’s demographics) and a small restaurant that actually looked appealing but suffered from being wedged between two pawnshops that looked like overstuffed garages. The block also had numerous vacant spaces, as is the case everywhere in town.
As we walked around this block it occurred to me that the environment was distinctly one of “Old Provo.” I don’t mean this in the sense of Provo back in its pioneer past. Instead, the aesthetics and clientele of the area projected an image of Provo as small, not metropolitan or cosmopolitan, and in some cases rural. I’m not exactly sure how long each individual business has been in operation, but somehow walking into a store and seeing rows and rows of guns and stuffed, dead animals doesn’t scream “big city.”
Of course, that’s fine if that is the image that Provo collectively wants to project. Indeed that is the image that the city projects, as this is the first block of “Historic Provo” after the freeway. However, ironically, the south side of this same block is also home to the Covey Center for the Arts. This attractive new facility hosts plays, musical performances, art exhibits, and is a participant in Provo’s monthly gallery stroll. By virtue of its newness, as well as its more cosmopolitan aims, I see it as representative of the “New Provo” image. This New Provo is characterized by an effort to be both more urban and urbane. It’s also evident both in the rapid expansion of the Provo arts scene, as well as in opening of other businesses like Guru’s or Mode Boutique. Unlike the places I visited earlier today, these New Provo establishments target relatively affluent clientele, college students and the highly educated, and a younger middle class demographic.
I don’t think that either one of these versions of Provo is inherently better than the other. In reality, they reveal that different groups of people, with different values, live in the city. Personally, I’m attracted to (and participate in) New Provo events and businesses, though I’m well aware that the changes these businesses represent displace and inconvenience other people, many of whom have a more legitimate claim on the city than I do. What I think is interesting however, is that as each half of this split imagines the city they probably don’t include the opposite side in what they envision. As New Provo groups attempt to revitalize downtown and bring in more widely appealing businesses, for example, they will inevitably displace those they consider “less desirable.” On the other hand, as Old Provo businesses exert their right to exist they make themselves an impediment to the completion of New Provo’s image.
Right now there is more than enough space for everyone in Provo’s financial district. (“Financial district” is of course a moniker used by New Provo.) Indeed, I imagine that the city would be happy to fill their many vacant spaces with anything, New or Old. However, in the long-run this issue will likely become more important. If the population continues to increase and New Provo businesses are able to expand, different people will obviously have different ideas about how downtown should be used. This may happen in five years, or in fifty, but there are clearly conflicting values on display in the city today and they will only become more apparent as they come into greater contact. I have no idea what will happen, but maybe that’s what it means for a town to become a city.
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