33) Granville's Struggle between Past and Future

Loss of the Past vs. Excitement for the Future

(Evelyn Frolking)

I’ve lived here for so long that I’ve observed changes.  I’m not opposed to change.  In fact I’m really sort of a change-agent.  That’s what I’ve done for Welsh Hills School.  So I really embrace change because I think it can bring about all sorts of new opportunities.  So, it’s the lamenting of what is lost in the past that kind of tempers the excitement for the future.

A More Suburban Mentality

(Evelyn Frolking)

Even though we still feel like we’re in the country, we really are getting very suburban and I think that people moving into Granville are moving in with a suburban kind of mentality.  This is a suburb of Columbus now.  They go to the coffee shop, get their cup of coffee, and drive to Columbus every day to go to work.  And the local economy is supporting that constituency which is why we have two or three coffee shops!

That Old Town Charm

(David Hawkins)

I don’t think Granville is unique, but I think it’s charming, none-the-less.  Unlike many towns in the country, it hasn’t sold out, so to speak, to chain stores.  It hasn’t become a strip mall.  It still has an essential character that was there in the 1950s and you can see in old photographs that downtown has not changed a lot in decades.  So in that sense it has that old-town charm.

But I think many medium-to-small size towns around the country, if they’re near big cities and if they have some innate attractive aspect, there’s this tendency to attract tourists.  Then all these folks move in and transform the town.  The charm is gone.

The Importance of Roots and Connections

(Robert Kent)

I just hope that fifty years from now there’ll be a lot of families around that can say that their parents and their grandparents grew up here.  The history of the place is very important.  You care for the place more than you do when you move in and move on.  And many people stumble onto Granville and decide to live here and they sink their roots down.  Can’t grow without roots.  In so many larger communities, people just pass through and don’t sink down roots.  And it’s the roots that provide the nourishment for the community to grow.  So that’s the most important thing that makes things happen for the best.

Small Town Way of Life is Vanishing

(Lyn Robertson)

For a long time I thought there were enough people who really understood the value of the small community that Granville has been for so long; that, they could put things in place that would slow that kind of growth or prevent it.  I’m less and less hopeful that can really happen.  It’s sort of like a machine that’s going across the country.  And with the kinds of money that people have to do the kinds of building and development that you see everywhere around the country.  We’re just ripe for that.  And it will take an extraordinary coming together of people in Granville, meaning the village and the township, to try to do something about that.  I think we’ve held it off about as well as a community can.  

People Don’t Know Each Other as They Once Did

(Robert Kent)

The connectivity is beginning to fade a bit – not very fast and not very much, but you can see it, because as we grow in size, we’re becoming strangers.  People don’t know each other as much as they used to.  And that makes it a little more difficult for things to be accomplished in Granville.  For years the school bond issues always passed because most people knew everybody and knew what the needs were.  Now if somebody’s in charge of the finances of the school and people don’t know that person, then they’re suspect.  They think, well, this person is not doing it right so I’m going hold him to a different standard than I might with somebody I know.  So the trust isn’t there.  An example was twenty-five, thirty years ago the library wanted to put on an addition.  And at that time everybody knew who was involved with the library and if the library people said that they needed to add on to it, everyone trusted their judgment and whatever they needed, they gave them.  Today it’s a little more difficult to get things done in Granville.  A lot more suspicious nature.

Community Dialogue is Healthy

(Laurie Kissack)

People get upset in Granville.  All the controversy recently in the paper and people voicing differing opinions:  “Oh, we don’t want the grade school here,”  “Oh, we don’t want Kendal there,”  “Oh, we don’t want these things.”  And I understand that.  I wouldn’t want a sewage plant in my backyard.  But I think it’s very interesting in Granville because we have those strong opinions, yet I know very few people that hold a grudge over somebody’s opinion.  It’s “Yes, this is your opinion and we don’t agree with it, but, we’ll get on with it.  You’re entitled that because you probably don’t agree with me.”  That dialogue is good and healthy.  And, ultimately it’s something that will help.  I think that’s one of the things that’s good about this town – we have diverse ideas on things and we have to have a lot of talk before making a decision.

“Pull Up the Drawbridge”

(Orville Orr)

My friend Don Bennett once said, “Well, you know I believe in zero growth.”  I laughed and said, “Don, everyone who moves here wants to pull up the drawbridge as soon as they get in, because they love the place.”  And for us it’s been very good too because our children are growing up here.

“Controlling Growth” to Some Means ”Shutting Doors” to Others

(Jim Gordon)

I kind of resent the attitude that, "We found Granville and we don’t want anybody else now to follow us here."  I experienced that in zoning hearings.  People say, "It’s inevitable that we’re going to have growth, but let’s control it."  Well, what is control for some people means shutting the door to other people.  That’s not the answer as I see.  That attitude bothers me.  And it seems to me we’re kind of going to extremes in our efforts to prevent over-development.

A Tug of War Between the Past and the Future

(Jeff Pound)

Granville is a historic community that wants to preserve this special identity and yet somehow allow the inevitable growth to happen.  And I think there is this internal struggle with highways, streets, how to preserve the special ambiance or atmosphere and yet also to allow some sort of growth and expansion.  To me, if there’s one thing that’s fascinating in Granville, it is this struggle between a very special history and tradition and also trying to allow expansion of schools, streets, water systems.  This is the struggle between the past and the future that I think is a tug of war in Granville.  New people move in, trees grow bigger, houses get older.  Life is like a river that flows.  Nothing can be just dammed up or it becomes stagnant and stale and I think Granville is working hard to try to achieve a balance.

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