Apr 21Liked by Joshua P. Hill, Spirit of Solidarity
I linked to my piece from last year about Whitefish, Montana (where I live), in the posted Note of this piece, but anyone who cares about these issues should definitely be following the work of Kathleen McLaughlin, who lives in Butte and is an experienced journalist writing about these issues in ways few other people are (besides you two!). Here is her interview with Ryann Pilgeram about gentrification in rural Idaho: https://kemc.substack.com/p/pushed-out-in-the-american-west
My mother is from a ranch near Geraldine (in the wheat-growing region of eastern Montana), which had a population of around 400 when she was born. Its population is currently 207. This is a very good piece! I appreciate your attention on these regions.
Apr 21Liked by Joshua P. Hill, Spirit of Solidarity
I lived in North Idaho from the late ā80s until around 2008 and I loved it, until it wasnāt safe for an lgbtq family. I had my eldest kid there, I had family that had been there for generations. We loved the land and our communities. As more and more folks fled from all over the prices increased. We left out of necessity and for my families safety. I donāt think I could afford to go back if I wanted to, the prices have gotten so incredibly high for everything. Even just to rent. Your piece is spot on for all of those areas. So many memories
Great essay. I've seen a lot of this too, living and traveling in various rural areas west of the Rockies for the last decade, mostly in the states of Oregon, California, Nevada, NM and Colorado. Totally agreed that rural gentrification is not getting enough attention. I read somewhere recently that homelessness is increasing at a faster rate in rural areas than in urban areas, but is less visible because of the lower density and access to public land. I've also run across a handful of campgrounds on public land that seem mostly inhabited by disrupted locals, not tourists.
Last year I lived mostly in Paonia, Colorado, which is located on the West Slope, just before the east-west roads start winding up into passes through the Rockies. It's a farming community with an impressive local food scene and was mostly hippies and rednecks since the 1970s, but has been gentrifying rapidly since COVID, when (according to locals) remote workers from the Front Range started coming in to escape Denver. "They say they don't like where they're from but now they're trying to make it like that here," was a common refrain. Housing prices are certainly going up there, though there are still affordable options (including work/trade) for people involved in seasonal agriculture work, which is how I was able to stay there. It was a pleasant town, where strangers say hello to each other on the town's main street, which had very few empty storefronts. (Fun fact: the high quality publication High Country News started in Paonia.)
What I saw and heard there was already familiar to me from other small towns I've gotten to know over the last ten years all over the west. It's exactly as you said: there are dried-up, blowing away places and then these gentrified places. Elsewhere on the West Slope there were examples of both. There were also addiction issues in many of the non-gentrified places.
Looking at the old boom towns, I have sometimes thought, well, why should there be a town here anymore? I have thought about it in terms of the previous human practices in much of the West, which were often migratory. Such lifestyles weren't aimless wandering, but were focused on being in particular places or regions because of their seasonal bounties. So, you'd make Berry Camp up in the hills in late summer, harvesting and drying fruit for the rest of the year. Or in the spring you'd be down in the wet valleys for Root Camp, digging tubers. Or in another part of the hills in fall for Acorn Camp, collecting nuts. Etc. There would be no point in living all year at Berry Camp. You show up when the berries are coming on and leave when they're on their way out. (I had an *amazing* time picking and processing Saskatoon berries on the Grand Mesa in Colorado last summer! I dried enough berries that I can have them with my breakfast oatmeal every single day!)
Now, mining for example is an entirely different activity from these. It's all about depletion, not measured harvesting and careful tending. But it is also about being in a place to take advantage of a "resource." As with Berry Camp, when that resource is played out, the reason for being there is gone. But our industrial civilization is no longer migratory (though agriculture still depends on seasonally migratory populations, with such workers suffering abuse). Collectively, we don't have an answer for what to do when the gold runs out, other than to move on if you can, which many people can't.
What to do about this? I don't know, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that places of habitation do need purposes.
As you rightly point out, universities provide a year round "resource" (notwithstanding the smaller summer populations) so there's a permanent purpose.
This has already gotten long, but back to Paonia. Having spent months listening to people complain about newcomers, I had an idea for a graphic that could make an important point: The town has a famous "Welcome to Paonia" sign and I pictured a single panel cartoon with that sign, and then some indigenous Utes added to it, as if arriving, with a speech balloon above them saying, "We hear you've got concern about 'newcomers.' We'd like in on that conversation."
The Ute territory of the West Slope was only stolen in the 1880s. It's a recent event, really. Paonia hasn't been there that long. The famous agriculture of the area is only possible because of massive disruption (like draining wetlands) and an extensive ditch irrigation system that not only diverts water, but also salinates the water downstream, because irrigation water applied to fields picks up salts as it passes down into the water table and thence back into the rivers. This is the northeastern corner of the Colorado River basin, and people are doing this everywhere throughout the basin, so by the time the Colorado River reaches California, its level of salinity has become so high it actually damages crops there. So how "sustainable" is Paonia in the long run? Not very. It's a longer lasting Berry Camp than the mining camps that preceded it, but it's still problematic.
So, in a society where migratory living is not currently possible (if ultimately preferable or inevitable in the big picture future) what do we do now about the people being priced out of their homes? Clearly, whatever we can, and the story you related about the tenant's union was inspiring. The rich are definitely going to have to be pressured to not be dicks.
Tenant advocacy will be needed. It seems that we are to become a nation of many renters as private equity firms continue to expand their ownership. I lived in a small town on the Delaware River in NJ. I recall old people who remembered parents who had worked in the paper mill. Some Irish families traced themselves back to the time of railroad construction in the late 1800's. Our town's people were of various income levels. I know no one under the age of forty who grew up in the town and is able to build a life there separate from a parent.
Similar happening in Britain. Lovely picturesque places are full of āsecond homesā and the locals canāt afford to live in a place where there lives are, yet because the second homers are there infrequently, most of the time the places are virtually ghost towns.
I appreciate how you described being in these towns, and that you mentioned Laramie and Iowa City as examples of not-quite-perfect but nevertheless better alternatives to the gentrification happening in so many areas. I've been hearing a lot about digital nomads and how this is getting bad in other countries where people still earn their salary in U.S. dollars and displace locals even more easily than they do here. It's honestly horrifying.
What happens when the wealthy push all the service & public workers from their luxery havens & have no one to wait on them anymore? I believe this is what caused San Francisco's homeless problem because many of the homeless work but can afford to live there.
This is much of a Coastal Maine too! The island where we live is full of second homes, and locals canāt afford to live on it anymore. At the same time there is a shortage of labour because people who do service jobs canāt afford to live where they work. We arenāt local so I feel like weāre in some ways part of the problem, even though it is our actual home not our holiday home.
Much the same happening on this island in Puget Sound. I can see Nordstrom, Beecher's cheese, and Boeing houses from my window. Costco is in the next bay up, where we swim. Microsoft a little further up the island. Everything is being bought up as a second home or AirBnB by folks who complain that they can't find an open restaurant or a plumber.
Good post. At any given time property values and town amenities reflect local supply and demand. The college towns have fared well and will continue to as long as their āindustryā of in-person education prospers. If that goes away then undiversified towns will wither (absent subsidies). My advice to young people would be to locate in well diversified metro areas.
I live in rural Southern Indiana. We are fortunate that the growth of our little town of Charlestown is growing and growing . Business ,homes and medical facilities are being upgraded. The strangle hold that the monied interests have on real estate is a plan to push the poor farther and farther away from facilities that are the lifeblood of these communities. We still have water that is full of toxic chemicals. I can imagine areas where tiny houses are being built in mass to put the old people in
I linked to my piece from last year about Whitefish, Montana (where I live), in the posted Note of this piece, but anyone who cares about these issues should definitely be following the work of Kathleen McLaughlin, who lives in Butte and is an experienced journalist writing about these issues in ways few other people are (besides you two!). Here is her interview with Ryann Pilgeram about gentrification in rural Idaho: https://kemc.substack.com/p/pushed-out-in-the-american-west
My mother is from a ranch near Geraldine (in the wheat-growing region of eastern Montana), which had a population of around 400 when she was born. Its population is currently 207. This is a very good piece! I appreciate your attention on these regions.
I lived in North Idaho from the late ā80s until around 2008 and I loved it, until it wasnāt safe for an lgbtq family. I had my eldest kid there, I had family that had been there for generations. We loved the land and our communities. As more and more folks fled from all over the prices increased. We left out of necessity and for my families safety. I donāt think I could afford to go back if I wanted to, the prices have gotten so incredibly high for everything. Even just to rent. Your piece is spot on for all of those areas. So many memories
Thanks for these insights! In Iowa City, in addition to the factors you mentioned, consistent public support for affordable housing helps: https://www.icgov.org/government/departments-and-divisions/neighborhood-and-development-services/neighborhood-services/community-development/affordable-housing-resource-center
Greed kills.
Great essay. I've seen a lot of this too, living and traveling in various rural areas west of the Rockies for the last decade, mostly in the states of Oregon, California, Nevada, NM and Colorado. Totally agreed that rural gentrification is not getting enough attention. I read somewhere recently that homelessness is increasing at a faster rate in rural areas than in urban areas, but is less visible because of the lower density and access to public land. I've also run across a handful of campgrounds on public land that seem mostly inhabited by disrupted locals, not tourists.
Last year I lived mostly in Paonia, Colorado, which is located on the West Slope, just before the east-west roads start winding up into passes through the Rockies. It's a farming community with an impressive local food scene and was mostly hippies and rednecks since the 1970s, but has been gentrifying rapidly since COVID, when (according to locals) remote workers from the Front Range started coming in to escape Denver. "They say they don't like where they're from but now they're trying to make it like that here," was a common refrain. Housing prices are certainly going up there, though there are still affordable options (including work/trade) for people involved in seasonal agriculture work, which is how I was able to stay there. It was a pleasant town, where strangers say hello to each other on the town's main street, which had very few empty storefronts. (Fun fact: the high quality publication High Country News started in Paonia.)
What I saw and heard there was already familiar to me from other small towns I've gotten to know over the last ten years all over the west. It's exactly as you said: there are dried-up, blowing away places and then these gentrified places. Elsewhere on the West Slope there were examples of both. There were also addiction issues in many of the non-gentrified places.
Looking at the old boom towns, I have sometimes thought, well, why should there be a town here anymore? I have thought about it in terms of the previous human practices in much of the West, which were often migratory. Such lifestyles weren't aimless wandering, but were focused on being in particular places or regions because of their seasonal bounties. So, you'd make Berry Camp up in the hills in late summer, harvesting and drying fruit for the rest of the year. Or in the spring you'd be down in the wet valleys for Root Camp, digging tubers. Or in another part of the hills in fall for Acorn Camp, collecting nuts. Etc. There would be no point in living all year at Berry Camp. You show up when the berries are coming on and leave when they're on their way out. (I had an *amazing* time picking and processing Saskatoon berries on the Grand Mesa in Colorado last summer! I dried enough berries that I can have them with my breakfast oatmeal every single day!)
Now, mining for example is an entirely different activity from these. It's all about depletion, not measured harvesting and careful tending. But it is also about being in a place to take advantage of a "resource." As with Berry Camp, when that resource is played out, the reason for being there is gone. But our industrial civilization is no longer migratory (though agriculture still depends on seasonally migratory populations, with such workers suffering abuse). Collectively, we don't have an answer for what to do when the gold runs out, other than to move on if you can, which many people can't.
What to do about this? I don't know, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that places of habitation do need purposes.
As you rightly point out, universities provide a year round "resource" (notwithstanding the smaller summer populations) so there's a permanent purpose.
This has already gotten long, but back to Paonia. Having spent months listening to people complain about newcomers, I had an idea for a graphic that could make an important point: The town has a famous "Welcome to Paonia" sign and I pictured a single panel cartoon with that sign, and then some indigenous Utes added to it, as if arriving, with a speech balloon above them saying, "We hear you've got concern about 'newcomers.' We'd like in on that conversation."
The Ute territory of the West Slope was only stolen in the 1880s. It's a recent event, really. Paonia hasn't been there that long. The famous agriculture of the area is only possible because of massive disruption (like draining wetlands) and an extensive ditch irrigation system that not only diverts water, but also salinates the water downstream, because irrigation water applied to fields picks up salts as it passes down into the water table and thence back into the rivers. This is the northeastern corner of the Colorado River basin, and people are doing this everywhere throughout the basin, so by the time the Colorado River reaches California, its level of salinity has become so high it actually damages crops there. So how "sustainable" is Paonia in the long run? Not very. It's a longer lasting Berry Camp than the mining camps that preceded it, but it's still problematic.
So, in a society where migratory living is not currently possible (if ultimately preferable or inevitable in the big picture future) what do we do now about the people being priced out of their homes? Clearly, whatever we can, and the story you related about the tenant's union was inspiring. The rich are definitely going to have to be pressured to not be dicks.
Tenant advocacy will be needed. It seems that we are to become a nation of many renters as private equity firms continue to expand their ownership. I lived in a small town on the Delaware River in NJ. I recall old people who remembered parents who had worked in the paper mill. Some Irish families traced themselves back to the time of railroad construction in the late 1800's. Our town's people were of various income levels. I know no one under the age of forty who grew up in the town and is able to build a life there separate from a parent.
Similar happening in Britain. Lovely picturesque places are full of āsecond homesā and the locals canāt afford to live in a place where there lives are, yet because the second homers are there infrequently, most of the time the places are virtually ghost towns.
Horrible.
On the morning of the first eviction
They carried out the wishes of the landlord and his son
Furniture's out on the sidewalk next to the family
That little piggie went to market so they're kicking out everyone
Talking about process and dismissal
Forced removal of the people on the corner
Shelter and location
Everybody wants somewhere
The elected are such willing partners
Look who's buying all their tickets to the game
Development wants, development gets, it's official
Development wants this neighborhood gone so the city just wants the same
Talking about process and dismissal
Forced removal of the people on the corner
Shelter and location
Everybody wants somewhere
Everybody wants somewhere, somewhere
Everybody wants somewhere, somewhere
Everybody wants somewhere, somewhere
Everybody wants somewhere, somewhere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSJFEkSWbro
I appreciate how you described being in these towns, and that you mentioned Laramie and Iowa City as examples of not-quite-perfect but nevertheless better alternatives to the gentrification happening in so many areas. I've been hearing a lot about digital nomads and how this is getting bad in other countries where people still earn their salary in U.S. dollars and displace locals even more easily than they do here. It's honestly horrifying.
What happens when the wealthy push all the service & public workers from their luxery havens & have no one to wait on them anymore? I believe this is what caused San Francisco's homeless problem because many of the homeless work but can afford to live there.
Thank you for this piece. Itās great to find someone writing on these important topics.
This is much of a Coastal Maine too! The island where we live is full of second homes, and locals canāt afford to live on it anymore. At the same time there is a shortage of labour because people who do service jobs canāt afford to live where they work. We arenāt local so I feel like weāre in some ways part of the problem, even though it is our actual home not our holiday home.
Laramie sounds a lot like Exeter in the UK. Saved from decay by a university which brings jobs, young people, bars, clubs, restaurants, and housing.
Much the same happening on this island in Puget Sound. I can see Nordstrom, Beecher's cheese, and Boeing houses from my window. Costco is in the next bay up, where we swim. Microsoft a little further up the island. Everything is being bought up as a second home or AirBnB by folks who complain that they can't find an open restaurant or a plumber.
Good post. At any given time property values and town amenities reflect local supply and demand. The college towns have fared well and will continue to as long as their āindustryā of in-person education prospers. If that goes away then undiversified towns will wither (absent subsidies). My advice to young people would be to locate in well diversified metro areas.
I live in rural Southern Indiana. We are fortunate that the growth of our little town of Charlestown is growing and growing . Business ,homes and medical facilities are being upgraded. The strangle hold that the monied interests have on real estate is a plan to push the poor farther and farther away from facilities that are the lifeblood of these communities. We still have water that is full of toxic chemicals. I can imagine areas where tiny houses are being built in mass to put the old people in