Hickory, NC News & Views | February 15, 2026 | Hickory Hound
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https://thehickoryhound.blogspot.com/2026/02/hickory-nc-news-views-february-15-2026.html
Hickory, NC News & Views | February 15, 2026 | Hickory Hound
If the weight you're carrying feels slightly heavier this year, it’s not a glitch in your life—it’s a design choice in the system. Hickory is becoming a high-efficiency, low-resilience community where the institutional machinery solves its own problems by moving the friction onto your kitchen table. Whether you're being recruited as an unpaid manager for the power grid or finding your healthcare network liquidated by a boardroom decision, you are absorbing the "maintenance debt" of a world that’s been optimized to ignore your individual stability. This week’s News and Views drills into the five collisions where your traction is being traded for an institutional mirage. It’s time to stop arguing with the weather and start studying the machinery.
Reality: Hickory looks polished on the dashboard, but are you the one holding the bill for the "efficiency"? This week we map the five places where institutions are offloading risk and labor onto the household. From "resiliency taxes" to pharmacy deserts, discover why your footing feels less stable even as the city transforms.
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