Lancaster County is morphing into s strip mall

Lancaster County — pronounced Lan-caster by non-natives, for some mysterious reason — is… Lancaster County — pronounced Lan-caster by non-natives, for some mysterious reason — is known for its agriculture. Or, more specifically, it’s known for its agriculturalists; hosting a landscape of hilly fields and green meadows with red barns and white silos under a sky that remains, for much of the year, blue. It’s a region built by — and upon — the Amish; traditionally moving a little bit slower than most and with more reflection. If it comes up in conversation, you might quickly associate it with something old-fashioned, and a few years ago, you might have been right. But with each trip home, I find that things have changed just a little more; that a land of cornfields and fishin’ streams has come one step closer to becoming a den of Best Buys and overpasses.

In an Aug. 3, 2003 Philadelphia Inquirer article, Chris Guy documents how development in Lancaster County is radically changing the environment and forcing Amish residents to move south to places like Cecil, Md.: “Amish farmers say development sprawl in Lancaster County has pushed land prices there to more than twice the $3,000 to $4,000 an acre they have paid for farmland in Cecil. And that is when there is agricultural land to be had.”

‘Urban sprawl’ is an appropriately unflattering term — implying, for instance, that Philadelphia loosens its belt and the gut bounces all the way to Harrisburg, absorbing everything in between. A smaller-scale event takes place when Harrisburg unwinds, but Lancaster and York will supplement it in the middle. Before too long, barns have been replaced by bagel-ries, fields rest under parking lots, and a unique locale has lost its cultural identity. In another 10 years, Lancaster might look much like Monroeville, which will bear remarkable resemblance to Erie, which, for the record, could easily be mistaken for Bethlehem. Roads become streets become strip malls that are by definition painfully uniform and uninteresting.

Those who oppose urban sprawl, such as the Lancaster Farmland Trust (www.savelancasterfarms.org) do so while citing practical concerns. Southeastern Pennsylvania has some of the most fertile soil in the world, and it remains one of the most productive agricultural regions this side of the Mississip’. There is money to be made in produce, and so it’s an argument that gets listened to from time to time. But there is also money to be made in development, and so much of Lancaster’s fertile soil is set aside for cul-de-sacs and well-manicured lawns.

Since money is the driving factor behind everything in the world, including my fair county, the Lancaster higher-ups must find themselves in a perplexing situation. While farming does make some money, the real cash crop is tourism, which demands an uneasy balance between farms and more developed attractions. The Amish run their farms and live their simple lives, minding their own business always, existing in relative isolation except, that is, for the river of mini-vans, khaki shorts and fanny packs that flows constantly through their communities. This high concentration of fanny packs — coupled with the tax hikes and land loss that accompany strip malls — ends up scaring the Amish away, and they take the tourism with them.

The gradual but definite migration of the Amish west to Ohio and south to Maryland is fairly well-documented but still taken for granted by those who will feel it most. When the Amish are gone — finally replaced by tourists-turned-residents and the chain stores at which they shop — a green and fiercely local heritage will be diluted and assimilated. Silos will fall to bulldozers, roads will run everywhere, and every open space will be closed by cookie-cutter plastic houses. Pennsylvania Dutch culture will exist only in the crappy memorabilia lining select restaurant walls. It’s happening already.

The Amish and Lancaster County have long maintained a sort of symbiotic relationship; something like tax breaks in exchange for brochure shots. And as long as the fields were available and the roads were relatively un-congested, things looked like they might work out. But this is no longer the case. If those of us on the inside don’t find some way to fight the ‘progress,’ Lancaster County the idea will finally drop into mediocrity along with Lancaster County the reality. The traffic will be thick, the scenery bland, the businesses franchised and the Amish completely absent. But the bright side is that there will be plenty of chain bookstores with cheap coffee, and I’m sure there will be clerks who know where to find good books on the subject.

When Lancaster, Harrisburg and Philadelphia eventually become Philaharrister featuring the estates at West Chester, who knows what kind of associations this area will draw for you. My concern is not that they’ll be negative, but that they’ll be entirely uniform. A decade ago, Lancaster County was something; a decade from now, I really can’t say.

Eric Miller encourages readers to support savelancasterfarms.org. They sell T-shirts that can trick idealistic men and women into thinking you have a cause. Save101@hotmail.com.