I was upset to read in last week’s paper that street vendors were going to be evicted from city center. 

In a city where it’s sometimes too easy to stay within a comfort zone of Costco and Walmart and Applebees and Starbucks, the street vendors are a constant reminder to step outside of that zone and find the soul of the city – a reminder that the soul is rarely found in the big box stores or tall buildings.

“There’s no going back,” the mayor was quoted as saying. Which is exactly what bothers me. 

I remember the days when Walmarts started coming to small town USA. There was no going back then either. My own small town included. 

Prior to Walmart, my hometown had a main street that bustled with shops and restaurants. All were locally owned and all offered a little something different than what you might find in a more modern town. The dime store sold used comic books for a dime; the hardware store repaired shoes and kept a box of odd nails and screws that were free if you just needed a few; the drug store had a soda fountain; the restaurants all had home made pies.

Most of the stores hadn’t been remodeled in years and none of them offered the modern convenience of the bright new Walmart. 

Several bars and taverns along the street weathered the storm, but all of the other businesses slowly closed down, leaving a main street that seemed to have lost its soul. 

The town tried to recover by putting up fancy street lights, planting trees and flowers, taking out parking meters, replacing old Christmas decorations, giving incentives for building improvements and replacing the worn benches around the court house square. From a visitor’s standpoint, it was all very pretty. But no one was sitting on the benches.  

The street vendors of Guadalajara aren’t being replaced by a Walmart, but they are being replaced by a similar idea – that something more modern is better. 

I don’t live in the city center, but I can’t help but wonder what these evictions will eventually mean for the woman who sells plants from a push-cart that I often see in front of my local OXXO. Or the man who sells colorful brooms from the back of a retrofitted bicycle on the corner of our street. Or the family that weaves crosses and flowers from palm leaves in the median of that street. Or the woman who is vision-impaired and sells candy on the corner where we turn to go to soccer practice. 

I also can’t help but wonder if the city won’t be losing a bit of its soul.