The Bozoulian / Pete Talbot

As Billings Goes, So Goes Montana

By Pete Talbot, 6-23-06

Let’s talk about Billings.

Usually I write about the tragically hip cities of Bozeman and Missoula – the two towns where I spend most of my time. However, last week I went to a distant relative’s wedding in the Magic City.

It had been awhile since I’d traveled to Billings and I was curious to see if things had changed.

At first blush, not much had. Many of the wedding guests arrived in the Billings vehicle of choice: the Dodge diesel-dually, super crew-cab, one-ton pick up. This is a rig that’s longer than most Missoula city busses. The men were wearing new Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots and their best NASCAR baseball hats. The women were dressed, well, sort of the same although there was the occasional floral-print muumuu.

At the reception, my wife urged me not to talk about politics but as the beer flowed (Bud Light, I think) I started chatting with the guests about suburban growth issues, the economy and the upcoming senate election.

I had the opportunity earlier in the day to cruise around the west end of town. Residential and commercial developments were eating up the sugar beet, corn and alfalfa fields at an alarming rate. McMansions and fenced subdivisions (with their three-car-garage homes at the end of cul-de-sacs) leapfrogged across the landscape.

“It’s getting out of hand,” a third cousin said. “It’s to the point where Laurel’s becoming a Billings neighborhood.”

Which led to a discussion about the Billings economy.

“I don’t know who’s buying these places,” my cousin said. “I can’t afford ‘em. Hell, I can’t afford the property taxes on my house in the Heights.”

This surprised me as he’s an experienced electrician and Billings’ wages have always been better than Missoula’s, and until recently, Bozeman’s.

“And I’m doing better than most,” he said. “I don’t know how a lot of people make it here. Maybe if we raised the minimum wage then some of the folks I know could afford to stay in Billings, or at least in Shepherd or Lockwood.”

I’m floored. Here’s a guy who voted for Conrad Burns the last three times out. Which led to a discussion on the senate race.

“I saw the Tester bumper sticker on your rig,” he says to me.

“Oh-oh,” I think, “here it comes.”

“I voted for him,” he says and points to his wife, “so did she.”

Again, I’m shocked. They explained that they were sick of Conrad. They were particularly upset about the fundraisers they’d read about – wine tasting in the Napa Valley at $2000 a head or golfing extravaganzas at fancy resorts.

“I guess our invitations to those parties must of got lost in the mail,“ his wife said.

“We don’t see Conrad around Billings much anymore,” my cousin added. “I know he brings a lot of pork to the state but I haven’t seen any of that, either.”

The pundits say that how Billings goes, so goes the rest of the state. Whether it’s politics or economics or housing, Billings best represents the state of Montana. It is the cross section of our population with its urban professionals, its agriculture, its trade and service industries.

These are genuine Montanans I talked with – unpretentious, obliging, straightforward. My conversations with them give me hope. The conventional wisdom about growth, housing, jobs and politics is changing in the Magic City. And if Billings is starting to rethink these issues, can the rest of the state be far behind?

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