They have fiber internet now. I grew up offline, had to fight for every improvement from 56k modem to ISDN to DSL. Now their internet is faster than mine.

We got a stop light and the gas station changed families. The stop light took me by surprise and I nearly ran it the first time.

We have crackheads now

It’s tripled in population. We’re up to about 3,000 people now.

Lots and lots and lots of empty places.

At least half of the retail space is basically dead.

My old shopping mall filled the half-empy food court with a climbing gym for kids and a massive video arcade, which is cool. It’s more like a flea market than a mall now because the storefronts that are occupied are all local retailers.

Oddly enough, the old cookie shop in the mall is still going strong and making the same great stuff. Apparently that place is timeless.

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Every small outdoors place I grew up playing in have been razed to build more detached homes.

The city is originally small, with 2 main roads crossing each other. With all the new influx of people, it is impossible to get out of there in a timely manner by car or bus.

Less trees. A lot less.

its about half condo townhouse but when I was young I would be surprised if it was 10%. Conversely so many mcmansions. Way more businesses especially restaurants. They are like one step away from allowing bars when before it was dry. Oh man the flagship pool is basically a waterpark now. so jelly of the kids. crime certainly higher. In recent times guns have been fired in town which when I was young you never even heard of a police officer firing a gun. of course catalytic converter thefts. Muggings and carjacking has happened. Growing up some teens firing of fireworks was crime. Gas stations requiring prepay. This excersise is sorta bumming me out now.

Gentrification and weed. When I was growing up, there were large swathes of town where you just didn’t go after dark. Now they’re all brand new office and lab space punctuated with dispensaries every couple of blocks.

A massive outlet mall opened, in a small city who’s biggest attraction previously was WalMart. Now when people ask where I’m from, the response I get to telling them is “oh the place with the mall?”

Also, I’ve heard the school district is pretty good these days. Unlike when I was there and my high school had one of the lowest graduation rates west of the Rockies.

The only change I think anyone would notice is the town got big on graffiti art. It’s everywhere now.

The population has tripled, downtown is no longer dead on weekends, housing cost has increased by a factor of 25. Crime has dropped precipitously, we went from one of the toughest areas in the country to average. No improvement in public transportation so traffic is much worse. My kids did not know the boredom that leads to hanging out drinking in empty lots, there aren’t many empty lots anymore.

*The population is 50 times what it was when I was a kid.

*All the cool places we used to hang out at school as kids are fenced off.

*The big tree that shaded half the yard of the house I grew up in was cut down. The property has been split into 3 separate “apartments” for rent. Everything was repainted and the yard looks nothing like it used to.

*Everything around town has been built up. Most of the empty fields have businesses or houses on them.

*The lake my grandfather and I used to fish at is no longer publically accessible. The lake was choked to death by algae caused by farm run off pollution.

*The main road is paved, has gutters, street lights etc. and isn’t a dirt road anymore like it was when I was little.

*Trains don’t go through the railroad going through town. They haven’t for years so no train watching.

Every time I visit, I know where less and less places are, because they keep closing older places and opening new ones. It really doesn’t feel like my hometown anymore. Last time I wanted to visit the music shop where I would practice piano and have recitals, only to drive by to see that it had been closed for a couple years.