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The failure of our younger Clintonville well-to-do millennials — in a now well-to-do neighborhood that once wasn't so posh — to take over the Clintonville July Fourth activities and fireworks after the Davis family and their stalwart volunteer base CEO'ed this major community event for 20 years, reinforces and validates every cliche we know about the millennials: self-absorbed and too busy with their iPhones to be bothered.

It's a major loss for our community and the end of an era for American patriotism. Millennials will begin to feel this in their wallets during upcoming years when their property values, which have skyrocketed in the past two decades, begin to tank as this currently great community deteriorates into a second-rate and economically iffy neighborhood instead of thriving.

Chip Elliott, Columbus