Does Growth Change the People or the Place?

By Todd Wilkinson, 10-21-05

Earlier this month, the Sonoran Institute held a conference in Wyoming that gathered together commissioners from a scattering of rural counties in the New West. Besides being a breathtaking backdrop for the event, Jackson Hole served as a prominent case study of opulent prosperity laced with acute questions about that amorphous thing we call "growth."

Commissioners got to see, firsthand, what consultant and former Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce executive director Suzanne Young calls "the upside of the downside of growth." Young didn't speak at the event but earlier this year she coined the term in an interview I had with her while I was writing a story for Jackson Hole Magazine about the chamber's Power of Place marketing slogan. Some see Jackson emerging as the "Geneva Switzerland of the Rockies," a venue where global leaders could meet in a peaceful setting and be inspired to address the world's problems. In other words, if you save Jackson Hole's spectacular natural setting, then people will come and they will gladly part with their cash to experience beauty.

Jackson Hole today is wrestling with the question of whether to remain a traditional tourist community, as defined by the model of the 20th century [families packing into cars or airplanes and heading West on their vacations], or make landscape protection a hallmark of its marketing campaigns. Every county commissioner who came to Jackson Hole for the Sonoran Institute event was looking for a similar thing: the secret formula that allows a community to achieve sustainable economic prosperity without sacrificing the often-intangible elements that make their place special.

Ironies, paradoxes and hypocrisies can be found everywhere in Jackson, though the challenges of inward population growth are also manifested on the other side of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, in Bozeman, and in every town that has become a magnet for pilgrims fleeing cities for the perceived Holy Grail of a better life. The down-home icons of Western river valleys-ranchers and farmers-are selling off their cows and, by personal choice, getting into the far more lucrative real estate business. Working class locals, who are credited with emanating a certain charmy quaintness to outsiders, are sent packing because they and their kids can't afford to own property. In scurrying over the mountain passes to other less-expensive bedroom communities, the inflow---as well as the disapora of economic refugees---cause police and fire departments, schools and road maintenance crews to become overwhelmed as their swelling numbers outstrip the ability of local government to deliver essential services.

Growth happens, prosperity arrives, dominoes fall. Economies seem to be roaring along swimmingly, but in hindsight, as citizens ponder the tradeoffs of what was gained and what was given up, the feeling of lament is like the old Peggy Lee song: "Is That All There Is?"

I mention the Sonoran Institute (SI) because no other organization headquartered in the northern Rockies--I say this, without exaggeration-- is doing a better job of examining the upside of the downside of growth. SI doesn't paint growth as good or bad, or as undesirable, or as NECESSARILY counter to the values, both real and mythological, that shape local community identity. But as SI environmental economist Ray Rasker notes, in stating the obvious, counties that fail to plan for the consequences (and costs) of growth are destined to be negatively overwhelmed by them.

As one visiting outside county commissioner, who attended the Jackson Hole conference, was heard saying: "In our town it's okay to utter the s-word [the one affiliated with excrement] but people take offense when you say the z-word (zoning)." In the absence of the z-word, the s-word is hitting the fan in many corners of the West where the cost of growth---expressed in a variety of forms- is finally being quantified.

Rasker has divined numerous insights over the years, but in his hometown of Bozeman the impacts of growth are more personal. Bozeman, like Jackson, is a more dynamic community than it used to be, but something has slipped away. "It used to be that when the college students left in summer, the pace of things quieted down," he says. "This year it was busy all the time. When I walk downtown to the coffee shop, it's full but I don't know as many people as I used to. When I get off the plane at the airport, I couldn't catch a ride home like I normally do."

In the gridlock of poorly designed transportation infrastructures, amid the honking and sprawl, the biggest casualty is the loss of civility and connection. I hear the same lament from ranchers and farmers who gather for coffee klatches down at the provincial cafe and are astounded at the number of neighbors they don't know--neighbors driving down the dusty highways who don't salute back when offered a friendly gesticulation of recognition.

Not long ago, Rasker and a friend were riding their mountain bikes in the Hyalite mountains south of Bozeman and both remarked how cyclists don't wave to each other any more as they blow by one another on the trail. As a group of young twentysomethings flew past without exchanging pleasantries, Rasker's friend turned around and hightailed after them, eventually catching them and forcing the riders to halt and get off their bikes. For a few minutes, Rasker said, his middle-aged friend lectured the startled, self-absorbed lads. Frustrated and annoyed, he told them: "This is a friendly town, God damn it! We need to be nice to each other!"

Where does the small town friendliness, the sense of interpersonal connection we all live for, begin and end? This, too, is another New West paradox. When growth happens, is it the place or the people that changes more?
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