In Search of Small-Town America
The '50-50 Project' began in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April of 2006. A three hundred-and-fifty day extended road-trip, covering over 30,000 road-miles – and a good few thousand in the air – visiting all fifty American States – in as many weeks.
For each of the States, a 'target-town' was selected: The chosen small town should be as close as possible to the physical centre of each State, and it should have a population of between one thousand and ten thousand, based on the year 2000 census. The route finally passed through over 1,500 small towns and villages.
Here, published online for the first time – in seventeen volumes, available as pdf downloads – the work is a collection of around 2,400 photographs, and over 340,000 words, exploring the many differing processes, affecting the deterioration of Small-Town America. It is in no way intended as an authoritative work, or a comprehensive travelogue, and although focussed primarily on small-town culture, it is very much a random, and personal view. It includes a variety of incidental observations, societal, media and political comment, and carefully considered insight. Often related with caustically casual humour, and with a sprinkling of expletives thrown-in, it's an occasionally flippant, but always informed view, of an iconic part of the wide American landscape.
Registered by The British Library: ISBN 978-1-3999-4150-1
Volume One
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The term 'Blog', is most widely attributed to Justin Hall – who, in 1994 began 'posting' various texts – and the phrase was coined by Peter Merholz in 1999, who broke 'weblog' into the word we know today. In 2006, I was unaware of all of this, as an upcoming phenomenon, and so I simply 'snapped-away', wrote it all down, and just 'kept it'. But essentially, that's what this is – a year long, daily blog – in pictures and words.
It was always the intention to turn the work into a very large book – but in physical form, at over 2,000 pages – it's just a tad too big, to fit onto any regular sized 'coffee table'. And so this is the current, digital equivalent.
Although viewed and described, inevitably, and necessarily, from a very 'subjective' experience, its prime intention, is to inform a predominantly 'objective' view. A meticulously crafted narrative, accompanied by several hundred precisely framed photographs, the work alludes primarily to, the lamentable demise of so many small American towns.
As an all too typical, and singular example:
"Wal*Mart not only offers an incredibly wide range of products, and of course: "Low prices – Always", but also, hard to come by employment opportunities. Faced with the existent probability of decimating 'downtown', what are the financially challenged folks to do? Stick-up for the preservation of the somewhat pricey, local hardware store, or go find super-cheap light-bulbs – and maybe a job even – at the brand-spanking-new 'hyper-market'." -
