i used to occasion denver's second spin. decent cheapo cd selection.

For a long time, I've held a sort of crazy optimism that folks from mine and the surrounding generations would change the landscape in positive ways, including providing an environment in which independent music and book stores, even coffee shops, could thrive again. I held this belief for the following reason: many of us grew up in suburbs and small towns, and I always felt certain that a significant percentage of us rejected that way of life and would repopulate urban nieghborhoods, reclaiming them as our own to create a place to live where those things that we always lacked (such as indy record stores) would be present, and those things that we detested growing up (boredom, corporate sterilization of downtown's by big box retailers, the inability to walk anywhere) would be noticably diminished. The article Timis referenced does mention these kinds of neighborhoods as a place where certain indy stores are still around or even succeeding. However, what's made me a bit pessimistic lately is that I don't know that my little ideal of the young creating nieghborhoods more in their image are feasible in ways that they were even ten years ago. This is largely due to the enourmous inflation of real estate and rent in most urban areas since the mid-90's, even in neighborhoods that once would have been prime candidates for this kind of redevelopment. My experience in New York in particular has been discouraging: it's not that these new kinds of neighborhoods haven't been able to spring up, it's that once they do, they become valuable and gentrification, for better or worse, takes hold , slowly making these places unaffordable for the young folks who moved their in the first place. This then opens the doors to the type of corporatization (even if on a smaller scale) that my little utopia would avoid. I fear that many folks around my age (25) that want to get into or stay in these neighborhoods will no longer have that chance, and that some of us will end up back in the suburbs we tried to escape, if only because we can afford to live there. This doesn't bode well for the little indy store, among many other little institutions I care about. I'm sure there are other relevant examples in other cities, I've seen it happen in communities located in or around Boston/Cambridge and Minneapolis, I'm sure there are many more that others here could mention. Anyone have something that can cheer me up here? (Feel free to entirely prove me wrong, that would make my week, if not my year.)

Actually around me the number of indie record shops has not been shrinking, but actually growing slightly. The Princeton Record Exchange is the big one for me, but a new place just opened in a town 10 minutes south of here. There aren't a lot, but what we have are still going strong.

i can think of at least 4 indie record shops that have closed here in the last 6 years. 9 if I count Savannah and Pittsburgh.