So many people in small towns can't grasp what Lampedusa said: "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change." Old timers get nostalgic for when the town had more youth, more businesses, more foot traffic downtown, but resist anything that could bring something like that back.

They'd rather have $53.26 back on their property taxes than schools without black mold and then wonder why the median age of their town is 52 🤷‍♀️

And a lot of it is just racism plus contempt for young people.

Because they’re not nostalgic for youth, they’re nostalgic for *their* youth.