The United States Postal Service needs help. We all know that; but what about the sociological and community services they offer beyond mail?  

This post started with a comment and subsequent discussion at RealCrozetVA:

Not to mention to say how much money they could save if they closed the Afton, Greenwood, and other small offices they have around the area and concentrated the operations for Western Albemarle at the Crozet office.

The Charlottesville processing facility closed early in 2010, but as of yet (to my knowledge) none of the small rural post offices have closed.

Presumably, rural post offices offer stability, social hubs … places for people to consistently come to that tie them to their homes. What would be the ramifications if they were to close? Maybe I’m over- or under-thinking this. Maybe rural post offices don’t offer what I think they do. I indifferently avoid the post office, and find that my local coffee shops provide the hub that I seek, but I wouldn’t seek to draw conclusions solely from my perspective.

A better solution would be, rather than closing post offices, limit mail delivery to Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (I haven’t looked at the economic impact of this, but it makes sense to me).

Are rural post offices valuable?

I’d love to see how many small post offices there are in the Charlottesville area. Searching for the post office in Free Union brings up that one, plus a few nearby ones.

Related reading:

– New Census Figures Mean Rural Areas Lose Clout
– Mapping Virginia’s Human Settlement Patterns
– Rural town fears US Postal Service cuts

* Unrelated note: I wish I could embed the Post Office’s map, but now Bing is