Project: The Price of Everything

Browncoat

Senior Member
This photography project examines the interconnected forces of consumerism, economic decline, and cultural erosion in post-industrial and rural America, using the visual medium to trace the transformation of local identity under the weight of big-box retail capitalism. Anchored around the omnipresence of corporate giants, the project reveals how the consolidation of economic power into a handful of massive retailers has reshaped not only how Americans work and shop, but how they see themselves, their communities, and their place in the nation’s story.

Where once small businesses, tradesmen, and local factories formed the backbone of community economies, providing both material well-being and a sense of shared identity, today's economic landscape is defined by dependence on low-wage, high-turnover service jobs concentrated in sprawling retail centers. In many former company towns and industrial hubs across the Midwest and South, the factory whistle has been replaced by the Walmart intercom. The same workers who lost manufacturing jobs in the wake of globalization now find themselves stocking shelves, scanning barcodes, and selling imported goods to neighbors who, like them, can no longer afford products with a "Made in the USA" label.

This is not just an economic shift, it is a cultural and psychological rupture. Towns that once had a unique local flavor, shaped by their industries, their geography, and their people, are increasingly indistinguishable. The strip malls, fast food franchises, and superstores are the same in Iowa as they are in Tennessee, eroding the distinctiveness of place and the pride of belonging. Main Streets are boarded up; downtowns echo with absence. The rituals of shopping, once rooted in personal relationships and local interdependence, have become mechanical, anonymous, and transactional.

The consequences go beyond mere aesthetics. These economic and cultural transformations have left deep social scars: chronic health issues exacerbated by food deserts and sedentary lifestyles; generational poverty; rising addiction and depression rates; and the steady erosion of civic engagement. Many of the same regions hardest hit by these forces have become strongholds of political populism. And not as a purely political phenomenon, but as a symbolic cry to “Make America Great Again,” to restore a sense of meaning and dignity that was stripped away along with the jobs and the factories.

What emerges is a self-reinforcing system: the retailer becomes the employer, the grocer, the pharmacy, and the only viable place to spend a paycheck. Economic dependency collapses into cultural dependency. This project will use photography to expose the hidden patterns in that cycle, highlighting the faces, spaces, and forgotten histories behind the slogans and headlines. It will juxtapose the uniformity of modern consumer culture with the ghostly remnants of a more diverse economic past. In doing so, invite viewers to consider not just what has changed, but what has been lost.

Through visual narrative and contrast, this work seeks to tell the story of an America caught in the tension between the seductive convenience of mass consumption and the deep human need for autonomy, place, and purpose.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Feel free to discuss and post your thoughts. I welcome them all. Either about the thesis posted above, or any individual photos that follow.

I turned 50 this year, which is right around the time a major shift began in the US. We went from being producers to consumers, and during my lifetime, I've seen some big changes in our local communities. There are a lot of seemingly unconnected dots that got us here and I feel compelled to document the fallout.
 
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Browncoat

Senior Member
Dayton-1.jpg


W 3rd Street, Dayton, OH
This area is roughly two city blocks of what would've been part of the original downtown area in the 1800-1900s. Not too far away from here is The Wright Cycle Co. building and where Orville & Wilbur Wright sold bicycles to help fund their aviation projects. While these historic buildings sit abandoned, a new row of high rent yuppie apartments is being built nearby.

To the east of where this photo was taken, the current downtown area of modern high-rise buildings is within view. To the west, the outlier of the next neighborhood. What was once alive and thriving is now just...frozen in time. It's surreal driving through here. It's like the Twilight Zone, just a couple of blocks of nothing juxtaposed between urban and suburban sprawl.
 

Clovishound

Senior Member
While much of what you say is true, consider what the pay and particularly, benefits, of many, if not most, of the small businesses are/were. Also consider the prices charged to the consumer. Typically, small businesses buy from middlemen and the cost of their products are higher, whereas large corporations typically buy directly from manufacturers and offer lower prices, and fresher goods. Of course, the customer experience is typically superior in a small business, but it's not all sunshine and roses. Most consumers prefer the lower prices and greater selection of the large home improvement store to the small locally owned hardware store. Yes, the owner is probably a friend and, hopefully, knowledgeable about his products, but prices are bound to be higher, and heaven only knows how long some of those cans of paint have been on the shelf, with the low turnover of a small business.

Also consider the difference in the changes in different areas of the country. In much of the northeast and midwest, businesses and people are leaving. Cities like Chicago and Detroit have seen a mass exodus of both. Places like the area I live in, Charleston SC, have seen unprecedented growth in both businesses, including manufacturing, and people. Everywhere you travel in the area sees new construction of homes, apartments, businesses, and factories. This sort of boom creates problems of it's own, and many of us wish they would put a "no vacancy" sign at the state's border. It is a very different situation to other areas of the country.

I heartily agree that we need to bring more manufacturing back to the US.
 
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