Boxing up the West
What’s Smart Got To Do With It?: Growth vs. Grit In Southern Colorado
By Tonya Poole, 3-25-06
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I'm a big picture person. When I was a kid and accidentally stepped on an ant, I mourned a few seconds for the ant, but wondered what would happen to the colony. Did I just upset an entire micro-ecological economy of scale? Was his role so important to the colony's survival that, by not watching where I was going, I've inadvertently killed off an entire ant community?
Clearly I thought too much as a kid. Unfortunately, not much has changed.
Today that big picture encompasses a whole lot more than ant colonies, so much so that I've stopped watching news for the most part if only to give my psyche a break. But as pro-green, pro-responsible living and anti-waste as I am – I, ironically, sit firmly on the fence when it comes to development.
Most of my greenish friends are passionately anti-development, most of my capitalist friends (not that they're mutually exclusive) are passionately pro-development. I sit in an odd space, one that's apparently got a fibrous, invisible forcefield around it – because I'm having trouble finding anybody else who shares it. It's the centrist in me.
I don't find development, as a concept, evil, greedy, irresponsible or any of the other things folks like to call it. It's a necessity brought forth by the natural inclination of a population and a culture to expand in the space it occupies - and that's a bigger, bolder issue that needs to be addressed before we can point our multi-colored fingers at development. Babies are born at a rate of about four million per year in the U.S., about 62,000 in Colorado, and they've all got to live and be productive somewhere. Growth and development are inevitable. But for me to support it, it has to make good economic, ecologic and cultural sense for the community it quickly changes. There needs to be a conscientious and measurable net gain for the majority, I can't and won't support growth for the sake of itself and the profits of a Board of Directors we'll never meet on our streets.
Walmart is a favorite target for these conversations, and rightly so in my opinion- I'm not a Walmart fan. I'd rather buy local and support ranchers, farmers, and businesses – large or small – that make and keep dollars in my community. And what's more - bullies are a turnoff. I'm not aware of any other American company more disconnected with or disinterested in the real desires of a community than Walmart.
That said, I also understand its purpose and its appeal to those who do support it. Particularly in smaller but growing rural areas where the population is expanding beyond the means that local business has to serve it, but wages and options have yet to keep pace with those changes – leaving in its wake, at least temporarily, little more than a larger population of low-income residents with few affordable places to go for basic needs. This is where Walmart plants its ripest seeds. So we'll leave the corporate giant alone this time, I've got smaller fish to fry.
Alamosa? You have potential. You're the geographic, cultural and economic hub of a large and enchanting valley, and you're attracting, increasingly, an earthy, intellectual and creative class that will one day help to define you. Alternative energy initiatives and organizations have caught your glint on the map in a region that, by and large, hasn't received much attention or big-picture support in past years. That's prompted some notice from other industries, too. You're on your way. Fortunately or unfortunately – depending on who you are and where you stand - development will become a natural part of that. And I've heard you embrace it, that you're interested in attracting business and jobs and a stronger identity to yourself. I've heard you making noise about smart growth, about exercising care and caution in the type and pace of growth you support. You have no interest, you've said, in becoming a suburb-laden, smog-ridden, traffic-jammed Denver – instead working to retain your intimate, authentic, small-town character while at the same time bringing new jobs and services and injecting new life into the community.
I fell in love with you for that and a great many other reasons. You drew me out of New Mexico with your raw possibilities: a sunny, dusty, gritty slate on which to draw funky and beautiful things. Not long ago, you thrilled and teased us all with the pre-opening of the new and very slick microbrewery downtown. This is good stuff – the stuff successful downtowns are made of.
We awaited your next announcement, anxious to get a glimpse of our future here, and you soon delivered: Alamosa will be the proud new host for... Taco Bell, Long John Silvers and AutoZone.
What?
We meet the future and seal our security as a one-day burgeoning but unique and responsible community by injecting a little more grease (edible and otherwise) into our diets? Is this the best we've got going for us?
Not only do fast food restaurants and mega-chains help take a community down Sprawlsville-Suburbia Road, they do nothing to define it, nothing to help shape it, contribute precious little to it and only encourage more of the same: more drive-thrus, more box stores, more asphalt parking lots, and more semi-artificial, convenience-based lifestyles. Whatever jobs they bring to the area are nominal, low-paying and subject to high turnover. And while I realize you're not going to turn them away, why is this the exciting news around town?
I'd love to see the whole of the San Luis Valley set a precendent for growth by expanding services to accommodate its population while retaining, and enhancing, its character, culture and identity as a unique region. I'd love to see the small, charming towns that surround Alamosa – like Monte Vista, Del Norte, La Jara, Crestone – stay exactly that way, and for Alamosa to become the lovely matriarch of the valley, offering the larger communal meeting and marketplace to its offspring. And I think you're well positioned to do so – as a community with a grand canvas on which to work, plenty of room to grow and a population that appears ready for change.
But frozen corn tortillas and spark plugs? I do hope you've got something else up your sleeve.
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Comments
Do you live in a small town, or do you live in suburbia? As a small town resident, I am very tired of eating hamburgers. A little variety when it comes to "eating out" will be welcomed. Would you be happier if Applebees was opening a restaurant instead of Taco Bell? Not everyone in the Valley could afford that. Eating at a convenient, drive-through, fast-food restaurant is a big night on the town for some folks. People who live in small towns deserve improvements in their standards of living, even if that means building a Taco Bell or (God forbid) a Walmart. If you live in Suburbia, you may not think that Taco Bell and Walmart is a great asset, but I'd be willing to bet that you don't have to drive more than 15 minutes to get to one. Try living in small-town America for more than a couple of weeks during your vacation and lets see if you get tired of eating hamburgers too.
Debate is one thing, and I'm up for it. Blind assumptions are another. To answer your question (if that's what it was): I live in Crestone. It doesn't get a whole lot more small town than that in this valley when it comes to available services. 15 minutes? Try an hour, each way. I spend 2-3 days a week, every week, in Alamosa - and have found a multitude of great, local mom-and-pop dining options there where I've paid no more than $5-$7 bucks a meal. The Pizza/Pasta Den, the Lamplighter Cafe, Hunans, Nino's, and a healthy handful of others. In fact I've probably had about 20-30 meals in Alamosa in the last several months - and none of them have been hamburgers, and very few have cost me more than a full meal at McDonald's would. So, forgive me, but I'm not quite sure why you're suggesting that Taco Bell and KFC will provide the only viable alternatives to "burgers all the time".
However, to redirect you to the point of the piece: you're absolutely right, people in small towns DO deserve those improvements. I believe the post said as much. But the primary point was that if fast food and chain stores are the city's only plan for development - don't expect quality of life to improve anytime soon as a result.
I absolutely love this area. I'd love to see it succeed.. I live here too. But I suspect, based on the track records of box-store-development in other small towns, this isn't the path to get us there. I'm hoping other plans are in place to balance that out with more local, community-centric business and programs that feed dollars into the community more efficiently, and provide a true value, not just a convenience, above and beyond heavily-processed foods.
Really?
In 2004 Wal-Mart sold nearly $259 billion in goods and became the largest private employer in the U.S. It didn’t do this by selling people things they didn’t want or by forcing workers to accept employment they didn’t desire.
By making decisions they thought best, millions of individuals made Wal-Mart successful.
It’s fashionable in some circles to believe that the uncultured masses make the wrong decisions and purchase goods they really don’t need. The bumper sticker of this movement proclaims: “Mall-Wart: Your Source for Cheap Plastic Crap.” Must our citizens be protected from their shortsighted fixation on such trivial matters as lower prices, convenience, and selection?
Beware our “betters” who pretend to know how others should live and work. Their attempts to impose their preferences over the choices of other individuals is neither fair nor democratic.
I'm looking for balance in my community. Walmart provides a service and products to the populations it serves, but it unfortunately also edges out nearly all other possibilities for local, family-owned shops in a community like this one. That's unfortunate, because I've witnessed how wonderful a community can be when you've got a variety of options, rich local character and support for local business. I'm a little surprised. Based on the comments here, you'd get the impression that health, balance and opportunity (beyond minimum wage jobs and convenience) are terrible things to work toward in a small town. Forgive me for valuing those things, won't you?
Life is not a zero sum game. In regard to Wal-Mart, the City of Bozeman learned this in two commissioned economic studies that found few impact on local business. Those rallying against Wal-Mart often have ulterior motives than protecting their community.
Come visit Bozeman’s main street if you’d like to see diversity and varieties of opportunity.
Business (be they local or national chains) survive and flourish by responding to consumer demands. By making decisions they thought best, individuals make these stores successful.
Here’s the key point: Decisions will be made. But by whom? “Progressives” who oppose or try to ban these particular stores are attempting to impose their preferences over the choices of millions of other individuals. This sort of protectionism is a hyper-conservative position. Is this fair?
In larger towns, Walmart may be able to co-exist relatively peacefully with other local options and thereby have less affect on variety and opportunity for local business. But in a town of less than 10,000 people, it becomes The Big Only. And we continue to watch downtown shops that have otherwise subsisted on the local market for years shrivel up and close doors leaving little more than dust and increasingly depressed, unvisited downtown in their wake. Similar things are true in the restaurant business, though not as profoundly.
To take itself in the direction it's hoping to, Alamosa will need to find a way to combat an economy of scale that will fast grow out-of-whack as free market options shrink and local income production evaporates. I'm always happy to discuss comments, but I'd appreciate at this point if you'd stop pushing this into an us vs. them debate (seems like you're poised to do so, and looking for a target), and suggesting that only progressive elitists value local community health and welfare. Nobody's looking for boutique here. Just balance
Folks across our region see every manifestation of competitive, dynamic economy leading us to an impoverished future. They decry the homogenization of America and perhaps worry that their town’s character and sense of community are being eroded.
These are reasonable fears. But at their root is a strong opposition to change. But change is the natural state of things. And it usually occurs faster in social than in ecological systems.
I’m concerned about the undemocratic desires that well up to constrain change, that are in reality, attempts to impose one set of values over others; often in the guise of protecting "community" values or "balance."
But we can agree to disagree.