FROM SUBURBS TO EXURBS TO 'WEB-URBS'

E-Commuters Make Western Resort Towns Their Home

By Headwaters News, 8-13-07

Advances in technology have allowed many deskbound workers the opportunity to work from anywhere, and consultants, software designers and other “location-neutral” professionals are deciding that they prefer that anywhere be the areas where they used to vacation.

The New York Times today takes a look at how “location neutral” professionals are changing the economies and politics of areas as diverse as Nantucket, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Teton County, Idaho, and Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Wealthy retirees and second-home owners have already been credited—or blamed—for making substantial changes to many Western towns, but this new crop of virtual commuters are different from those émigrés in that many bring their families and are much more involved in the community.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the population of the nation’s 297 counties rated highest in natural amenities grew nearly 10 times as fast as the population of the 1,090 rural counties with below-average amenities.

And Colorado’s Routt County, where Steamboat Springs is located, is one of the first counties to recognize this new class of newcomer.  A 2005 survey found that one in ten year-round households reported income from a “location-neutral” business.

The Times says Steamboat Springs’ Main Street, with pricey restaurants nestled next to pawn shops, reflects the changing fortunes of the Colorado town, where few of the middle-income workers can now afford to live.  Nearly all of the county’s 1,500 workers commute an hour or so from their homes in nearby Moffatt County.

The new residents have also changed the political hue of the county, which moved to the Democratic column in the last election, and Carl Steidtmann, the chief economist for Deloitte Research, who moved from Brooklyn to Colorado Springs two years ago, told the Times he’s seen the City Council change from a “develop at all costs” board to one with a more conservationist view.

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