Although the main highway arteries of Route 24, Pulaski Highway and Churchville Road were crowded with traffic, as they usually are, it was strangely deserted driving through the County this Saturday afternoon looking for office space.

As we drove through Aberdeen, we were surprised at the disheveled appearance of several empty retail and office buildings along the main street next to Route 40. Three young men had marked out parking space and part of the street as occupied territory, and one of them was walking around in a casual manner oblivious of traffic. We had the scary feeling you get sometimes driving through unexplored areas of downtown Baltimore. It was a different Aberdeen than the one we thought we knew, and it made you a little sad. You had to ask yourself why, with a national economy that is touted as being as strong and vibrant as any in our history, that so much office space goes begging all over the County, and so many homes have "For Sale" signs in the front yard. Maybe it has something to do with the changes taking place at the Proving Ground.

Outside the town limits and across the I-95 overpass on Churchville Road, we turned into the Technology Park and down toward the HEAT Center. A pickup truck was leaving the parking lot, and another nondescript vehicle sat parked outside one of the strip corporate offices. That was all the signs of life there were. It was a little eerie. We made a right turn and drove slowly up the long macadam-covered drive in front of one of the long buildings. With the exception of the vehicle parked out front, it was quiet and deserted. At the end of the drive we turned right and went up an incline to ride back along the length of another newly constructed long building opposite the one traversed moments before. There was a single corporate occupant toward the front end. We parked in front of the building and walked up and looked through one of the deserted windows. Inside was a vast stretch of roof-covered steel girders and unpartitioned emptiness. We supposed it was a practical way to build a building that offered flexible space, but it seemed cold, calculated, and devoid of optimism.

As we drove west along Route 22, it was difficult not to notice the new construction that began in Churchville and increased as we rode past the community college and into the outskirts of Bel Air. We wondered if we weren't witnessing the same suburbanization of Bel Air and the other towns in Harford that is seen with very large cities across the country. Try as they might, we suspect the local city governments will not be able to resurrect the downtown areas here, or anywhere. Business goes to the people; and the malls, and maybe now the Internet, are the means. There are no more downtowns downtown.

DM