Chapter Thirteen - Internal Colony

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Internal Colony

YOU’D THINK WHEN the jobs left, the corporations would leave too.
But they didn’t.
They came back.

Just not with opportunity.

They came back with fast food, big box chains, dollar stores, and pharmacies on every corner.
The kind of businesses that don’t build communities. They mine them.

This is the part nobody talks about:
When a city loses its industry, it doesn’t go quiet.
It gets harvested.

And that’s exactly what happened to Dayton.

The factories were gone.
But McDonald’s was hiring.
Walmart was fully staffed.
Dollar Tree opened up a location two blocks from the last one.
And suddenly, payday loan shops outnumbered banks by a mile.

This wasn’t rebuilding.
It was replacement.

The jobs were lower. The hours were worse. The wages were trash.
No unions. No benefits. No pensions.
Just enough money to survive and just enough pressure to keep you too tired to fight it.

The businesses weren’t local anymore.
The profits weren’t staying in the city.
They were leaving every night in armored trucks and data lines, vacuumed up by CEOs who’d never stepped foot in Ohio.

This is what people mean when they say “internal colony.”

Because it feels like occupation.
Your community becomes a market.
Your struggle becomes someone else’s business model.

You’re not poor by accident.
You’re poor by design.

And what do they give you in return?
Frozen food. Cheap liquor. Lottery tickets. Maybe a t-shirt that says “Proud to Be from Dayton,” printed in a factory three states away.

The worst part?
It gets normal.

A whole generation grows up thinking a cashier job is the dream.
That working two shifts is just what life is.
That hope is something you have to buy back on K-mart layaway.

This isn’t just decline.
It’s extraction.
A second wave.
A silent recolonization.

And it’s still happening.

You drive through Dayton today, and you’ll see the logos.
The chains. The same three storefronts copied and pasted across every corner.

The factories are gone.
But the machine is still running.

It just changed shape.