How to build community? in anticlimatic

I grew up in a town that was founded only a hundred and fifty or so years prior specifically to be a resort community for rich folks. Prior to that, it was missionaries and churches, but in the 1850s or so Uncle Sam granted the natives that lived along the water rights to their property- which they promptly sold for 50 bucks and a bottle of whiskey, and people made a lot of money developing and selling it. From the late 1800s to the stock market crash it was a booming good time here, but economic hardship forced the town into a dirtier more working class environment, and as the decades moved on the town waxed and waned until I arrived in the 80s. At that time, most of the homes downtown were very old and occupied by very old ladies. There was a hardware store downtown. A gas station. A movie rental place. A book store. Toy store. Bank. Deli. Old school greasy spoon diner that was deep and tiny with a long bar that ran the length and 1950s looking stools with springy faux-leather plastic seat cushions. The entire wall of the diner opposing the bar was a massive magazine and newspaper rack, with the adult options out of reach on the top shelf, and you could smoke in there if you wanted. The town, overall, was normal. Overgrown neighborhoods of old decrepit homes occupied by families, or old people.

Fast forward 40 years, and all those old ladies are gone. Their children sold the homes to people out of state looking for a vacation spot, or investors looking for an investment property to air bnb. All the families grew up, or sold out and moved to the countryside where property and property taxes were cheaper. The video store turned into a rich person boutique. The hardware store turned into a rich person boutique. The gas station turned into a coffee shop. The greasy spoon with the long bar turned into a millennialized fine dining restaurant called “The Paper Station” as a nod to the old newspaper and magazine rack of the previous enterprise. The entire town is now JUST a resort. The backbone of yearly residents and families has either evaporated completely or been pushed out of the town limits into the countryside. Everything is shiny and plastic looking and laid to waste by over-landscaping. All the old tall trees were eliminated. The old picket fences with the overgrowth and vines were replaced by brand new wall-like fences and astroturf.

It’s unnerving watching the class divide allow one to swallow all the best parts of an entire town, while forcing the other to live out in the fringes with their own networks of retail restaurant and recreation. Poverty feels like it has arrived again, but only for the underclass. The upper class seem to be living high on the hog. It would be one thing if they were genuinely invested in the community, had family here, lived her year round, skin in the game, had good taste and promoted things everyone could enjoy- but they just don’t, by and large, and their taste in anything is abysmal. I just don’t see any way for them to hit the hardship necessary to return this town to normal without visiting far worse hardship on everyone else.