Delta: a Fading Image of Small-town America

By: Andrew Thomas

The next generation won’t witness the decline of small-town America first hand—they’ll read about it as a footnote in history class. It’s nothing new. It’s too far gone. Articles and statistics on the shrinking of small town populations abound, as people have been relocating from rural areas to urban centers for decades. Of course there are exceptions—ephemeral oil fracking towns, gated suburbs, practically-retirement-towns, for example—but on the whole, small-town life manifest in 19th and 20th century America has receded to the point of no return.

I wanted to find the forgotten parts of California—a search for the small towns often forgotten by urbanites like me who typically dwell in more affluent parts of the state. One morning I drove up to the delta of the San Joaquin River and Sacramento River, home to several small towns clearly detached from the Bay Area’s 7 million inhabitant sprawl. I had no expectations, but I ended the trip with new fascination in rural America.

The Delta is splattered with quasi-swamps and crop-filled reclaimed islands, accented by silos and windmills. Most articles about the Delta focus on its destination crawdad festivals or relive a picturesque past of residents fishing in the sun-soaked river banks. That warm nostalgia is often juxtaposed against local homes and towns on the verge of bankruptcy and consumed with lawlessness. 

A drive alone from the Bay to the Delta might seem boring to some, but if you peel back the layers there’s a lot to take in. Especially if, as I did, you turn down some random roads and venture by foot. You may encounter, as I did near Isleton, more than one home in disrepair, and a distrusting local threatening to “take action” for setting foot on his property. You may encounter undeveloped tracks of suburbia, neatly planned with everything you’d except in a suburban neighborhood, expect for the cars, houses, and the families. You may find, as I did near Locke, artists next door to apocalyptic preparation billboards next door to heritage Chinatown memorials. I had imagined friendly small town folk sitting, talking and waving—that was nowhere to be found, at least while I was in the Delta.

Will the recent trend, at least among some people, towards a slower pace of life, as well as the ability to work remotely, revitalize American small towns? Will the relative cost of living incentives drive knowledge workers away from rent-crazed metros and towards places like the Delta? Or will relocating urbanites still demand too much, too quickly from their communities to consider investing their lives in resurrecting small town America?

As California continues to draw people from around the world, either aspiring actors or tech entrepreneurs, and rents continue to soar, my guess is that the average urbanite is unlikely to consider, or even remember, small town America. And now, I’m not even sure we still what know what it is.