Viking Lumber – Belfast, ME

I was recently up in Maine visiting my family. They run a lumber and building supplies company, Viking Lumber, that, although located in a more rural area, offers many of the same implications for the community that are mentioned in Global Cities, Local Streets.

In a globalized world, even Tokyo, Japan and Mid-Coast, Maine have similarities across local business contexts with the emergence of big box stores and shopping malls. As globalizing forces like Home Depot have entered the market in Mid-Coast Maine, Viking has reinforced its identity as a place in which salesmen and customers know each other; the customer’s best interests are kept in mind; and employees know their products.

In Tokyo, Azabu-Juban has confronted the global, yet remained a vibrant local street of small businesses. Ms. Yamada, a shop owner on Azabu-Juban, feels that the large development nearby, which caters to more transnational businesses, has failed to see the value of the local. She says, “They only talk about the future, and the social networks of the past were all left unprotected. They destroyed the community and built a place of tall buildings, in other words a place without human communication. I think that they weren’t aware of the importance of local community” (Hattori, Kim, and Machimura, 184). The local shops on Azabu-Juban and Viking alike depend upon social networks and human connection. Ironically, with large scale globalizing development, there is a greater emphasis placed on the local as “authenticity” and “tradition” becomes commoditized.