A Kentucky town may be gaining $600 million of stimulus money. But what will it lose?

But what happens to all of this if a factory moves into town? I spoke to a half-dozen of the locals and almost all were supportive of the project because of the economic benefits. The responses ranged from the community-oriented to the self-centered: "If it brings jobs"; "As long as it brings more people to Glendale"; "As long as my property value goes up."

The most striking Glendalian we met was the inimitable Roy Perry, the kind of man who sticks in your craw and refuses to be shaken loose. We met Roy across from a dairy farm about a mile and a half from the prospective site. At some point during his 38-year stay in Glendale, his chest had begun to sag with age. When we found him, he was wearing nothing but flannel pants. An Army veteran, he had worked downtown for 20 years after leaving the service. The man knew Glendale.

When we interrupted his Sunday, he was reading the paper on his porch, flanked by his two dogs, Raleigh and Snookums. He scooted his way down to our car in his electric wheelchair, outraced by Raleigh's carnivorous sprint. "Shut up, Raleigh, I can't hear," he said when he got to our car (where I was cowering from Raleigh's advances) and grabbed Raleigh by the back of his neck.

I asked whether he was nervous about a factory being built so close to his house. He didn't care, for selfish reasons: "I'm not going anywhere." As long as the factory didn't take away his house, he was fine.

But what if it takes away his town?

Being in Glendale is like watching a tween on the verge of puberty. It badly wants to get a job and enter the real world of adulthood, no matter what extra responsibilities come along with it. It's looking forward to losing its naïveté and innocence, unaware that they can never be recovered. About the inevitable post-factory development, one resident said, "They're going to have to go around us." But he's ignoring a fact of life: Once your voice cracks, you can never turn back.

As unemployment deepens in this country, the passion for Not in My Backyard campaigns withers. It's a dynamic that huge stimulus investments will take advantage of. Jobs are needed; charming downtowns are not. A remade America demands a remade Glendale.

(Photos by David Backer.)