Growing pains
My town is changing - quickly, and not necessarily for the better. Obviously, every town changes with time. Businesses come and go, as do people; some move, some die, all change with age, sometimes becoming unrecognizable. New neighborhoods spring up, new businesses sprout from once vacant lots, new roads go in to service all the newness, and the face of the town changes. For the most part, those changes have been gradual in my town. It's a small town, off the beaten path a bit, and short of its breathtaking geographic beauty, lacking most of the qualities that draw throngs of new residents. There are very few well-paying jobs in town. There isn't much in the way of affordable housing available. With the exception of WalMart, Home Depot, and the usual fast food enterprises, we lack major retail outlets. It's more than an hour drive to the nearest mall or movie theater. There is no institute of higher education within a 70 mile radius. But the area is beautiful - breathtakingly so. As a result, the various magazines that rate such things (Sunset, Outdoor Life, and the like), have deemed this town one of the country's most desirable places in which to live, going so far as to call it "the next Aspen". I want to thank those publications so much for those articles.
Not wanting to miss out on the latest, hottest, hippest thing, people are flocking to this area. They are not flocking to live and work here, though. They are coming to develop the area, build homes, drive up housing prices, sell their spec homes, then move on to the next hot market. The people who can afford these new homes are mostly retired, usually don't plan to live here year 'round, and add nothing to the economy in the way of jobs created. Sometimes they are people who need a tax write-off in the form of a second home, or maybe they want to escape city life for a week or two a year, so they build a home here to meet that need. Unfortunately, they usually bring their big-city attitudes with them when they are in town, driving aggressively, behaving rudely in our local business establishments, treating the employees at said establishments as servants, barely worthy of acknowledgement. Yes, my town is changing.
Houses are going up faster than I can keep track of them. Neighborhoods of dozens of ostentiously enormous homes, paved with wide, interstate-like roads, are being cut into the previously roadless, pristine forests, miles from downtown, changing the very nature of the area. If I take a different route to work, I am apt to be assaulted by the shock of seeing new "premier, upscale townhomes" being built where a block of quaint little homes once stood, as was the case this morning. Laughably, these premier townhomes back up to shoddy little houses (picture chicken coops in the yard, laundry hanging on the line) and front one of the few busy streets in town. Not exactly my idea of a "premier, upscale" location, yet they're asking more for them than the value at which my house, on half an acre, with lake access, was appraised. We are in the midst of a sort of tax revolution as a result of the meteoric rise in property values. My property taxes are set to increase by more than 50% this next year. Thank you, all you "hipsters" who are changing my town.
When I first moved here, if I called my friends at home, and they were not there, I could almost always find them by just driving around the few streets that comprise "downtown", locating their vehicle, and going into the store on that street. They were almost certainly inside, or walking down the street, easily spotted. Going to the grocery store took forever because I invariably knew 75% of the people in the store, and of course, had to stop to chat for a few minutes. Everyone smiled at everyone else. People said "hi" even if they didn't know you. They probably know your folks, kids, siblings, or neighbors. It was a nice feeling. If my kids were at the City Beach, and I had to leave for some reason, there was always a contingent of friends around me who would look after them for me. Now, I barely recognize a tenth of the people I see on the streets, or in the shops. Now that we've become "hip", the folks walking our streets and perusing our shops are usually tourists, or seasonal residents. Most locals don't even go downtown any more. The parking is a nightmare, the shops are tourist oriented, and unless you work downtown, you seldom have a reason to do so. Yep, my town is changing.
I used to joke that we didn't have rush hour here, we have "rush minute". No more. Traffic in town is choked from a two lane road into a one lane road on both ends of town, as it comes into town and as it leaves town. The volume of traffic has increased 5-fold, yet we have roads that haven't had their capacity expanded in over 20 years. We now have rush half-hour. I avoid it by leaving for the gym at 6:30 AM and not leaving work until 6:30 PM. My town is changing, and I am not thrilled with most of them. But I still love my town. I hope we find a way to deal with all the changes without losing our character, our heart, our core.
