Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The West sings the Denver airport blues. Excerpts from a free-ranging interview with two of the most effective critics of Denver International Airport. PAUL EARLE: We have to keep buying new file drawers, shifting them around to make room for more. We’ve got more […]
Communities
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
An ersatz democracy gets what it deserves
In the late 1980s, the city and county of Denver chose to look away from a deteriorating public school system, dirty air, traffic jams and inadequate public transportation, to pour $10 billion into 53 square miles of prairie out toward Kansas. As this special issue shows, the decision to build Denver International Airport was made […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Looter nabbed in Utah
The man who once bragged he could outsmart anybody and never get caught has been indicted again for allegedly plundering an ancient Indian ruin. BLM agents caught Earl Shumway, 37, and his accomplice, Peter Verchick, 24, digging up an Anasazi alcove in southeastern Utah in mid-October, reports AP. A search warrant later turned up other […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Arizonan gets crosswise with neighbors
A call from the Lord to erect a 70-foot Celtic cross and 30-foot statue of the Madonna has not gone over well with some people in the southern Arizona town of Sierra Vista. Jerry and Pat Chouinard plan a $500,000 project that includes a chapel and a 10-car parking lot – as well as the […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Don’t dump on tourists
Those who blame tourism for dissolving ties in small towns and increasing living costs are on the wrong track, say some planning experts. It’s “the real estate community that is corrupting towns,” said Myles Rademan, public affairs director for Park City, Utah, at a Telluride, Colo., summer travel symposium. Other panelists also targeted escalating real […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
We can’t save the land without first saving the West
Once a month I spend several hours with what I affectionately call my “wise-use” group. It’s not really a wise-use group but at first glance it resembles one. Members include the six county commissioners from Delta and Montrose counties here in western Colorado, a rancher, a timber mill employee, a coal miner, a banker, and […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Land-use plan is disemboweled
Kalispell, Mont. – Over the breakfast special at the Outlaw Inn, Steve Herbaly reflected on the joys of his job as director of planning for Flathead County. Only the night before, he and his staff had been called socialists, communists and general purveyors of the demise of America at a public hearing over the county’s […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
What to do when opposition to planning turns ugly
Note: this article is a sidebar to a news article titled “Land-use plan is disemboweled.” When the numerous and vocal opponents of the Flathead plan suddenly came out of the woodwork last summer, it was a shock to many people. But it was probably no accident. “That’s a typical strategy,” says Tarso Ramos of the […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Noose threatens planning supporter
Ellen Gray locks her office door when she’s at work. Since she was threatened during a public meeting in Everett, Wash., this month, her job as director of the Pilchuck Audubon Society’s SmartGrowth Campaign seems a high-risk occupation. Gray had just testified about a proposed land-use ordinance at a Snohomish County Council hearing when a […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Beauty eludes the beast
Washington’s Methow Valley may avoid industrial tourism
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Citizens held off big money for years
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Beauty eludes the beast. METHOW VALLEY, Wash. – Only by sticking determinedly to their vision of this valley for 20 years did environmentalists force a compromise from all-out development. When the Aspen Ski Corp. and the Forest Service wanted to develop a downhill ski resort […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
How Methow Valley grew an economy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Beauty eludes the beast. METHOW VALLEY, Wash. – While developers and government officials spent two decades and millions of dollars trying to turn this valley into a destination downhill ski resort, residents quietly built and maintained a world-class cross-country skiing area. Now the proposals for […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
The valley around us is deep
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Beauty eludes the beast. Close to the Canadian border, Washington’s Methow Valley startles visitors with its wild 8,000-foot peaks and lively weather: sunshine one minute, boiling clouds the next. What words could do justice to its stark beauty, seen by visitors during an hour and […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Land-grant universities
Their roots loosen as the Westchanges beneath them
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Between past and future
Washington State University tries to get there from here
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Budget cutters whack at researchers
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Sexy weapon thwarts bugs. Jay Brunner is hunched over a microscope, watching a tiny wasp crawl over a bright-green caterpillar called a leafroller. The ant-sized wasp has laid about 10 eggs on the leafroller’s dense web. When the young wasps hatch, the entomologist […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
A tale of two ag programs
Evergreen State provides an alternative to giant Washington State
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
On campus: A department head tries to change the academic culture
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about land grant universities in the West. If the West’s land-grant universities are to evolve, faculty like Glen Whipple are keys to that evolution. Whipple is head of the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Just as important, he […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Off campus: A sociologist tries to help Idaho’s small towns
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about land grant universities in the West. When sociologist Aaron Harp interviewed for a job at the University of Idaho, he was asked if the university had an obligation to save the state’s rural communities. “That’s a loaded question,” says Harp. “And having […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
A small town in Oregon gets ugly
After tarred-and-feathered effigies of two environmental activists were strung up in the center of Joseph, Ore., Sept. 30, the local newspaper headlined its story: “Enviros can learn a lot from a couple of dummies.” Some residents then organized an economic boycott aimed at driving the two environmentalists out of town. Were these tactics reminiscent of […]