Hillbilly Elegy

that apparently involved shoveling tons
of dirt into the river and hoping
something interesting would come of it.
It accomplished nothing, though the river
now features a man-made dirt island
about the size of a city block.
Efforts to reinvent downtown
Middletown always struck me as futile.
People didn’t leave because our
downtown lacked trendy cultural
amenities. The trendy cultural amenities
left because there weren’t enough
consumers in Middletown to support
them. And why weren’t there enough
well-paying consumers? Because there
weren’t enough jobs to employ those
consumers. Downtown Middletown’s