I live in one of those Western
towns that’s booming. Fast and furious. Set near a national
park, surrounded by 2.3 million acres of national forest, and right
at the base of a ski resort, Whitefish, Mont., lures not only
visitors but also the affluent who want to buy into the Montana
lifestyle. Ironically, newcomers claim they don’t want to
change the feel of town, but they do change it, just by virtue of
money: They’ve got lots.
Moneyed growth is a
two-edged sword. While no one — not even newcomers —
wants to change the town’s personality, it slowly alters
anyway… brick by brick, streetlight by streetlight, gated
community by gated community. Growth breeds unfamiliarity.
“Whitefish is not as chummy as it was 10 years ago,” says
Pete Costain, an avid mountain biker and backcountry skier. “A big
loss is recreational access. You used to be able to go right out
your back door.”
Meanwhile, the new people aren’t
building the local economy. Montana ranks dead last in average
annual income compared to other states. Folks moving in bring their
jobs with them, or they are pleasantly retired and investing prior
earnings. In the case of second-third- or fourth-homeowners, they
fly in for a month while a business elsewhere racks up the bucks.
Perhaps that’s why the word “newcomer” has sunk
into derogatory language. Locals are cool, newcomers are not.
Locals drive gas-efficient rigs, newcomers don’t. Locals like
open spaces, newcomers want to develop raw land. But no one really
knows when one becomes a local. Is it 10 years, 20 years, or more?
One hundred years ago, everyone in town was a newcomer. Today, how
long you’ve lived in Whitefish seems to define the value of
what comes out of your mouth.
Just 10 years ago,
Whitefish streets held potholes that we joked rivaled the Mariana
Trench, the deepest location on earth. Our cars got flat tires, if
not damaged axles. Parents in town had to drive their kids to
school because there were no safe bike lanes. Financially,
Whitefish was hardly in a position to consider building a swimming
pool. To repair some of the local streets, the town instituted a 2
percent resort tax in 1996. While Montana has no sales tax,
Whitefish does, because so many visitors use its parks, streets and
services.
Since then, rolling pastures have evolved into
housing complexes and hillsides into manicured gated communities.
Dot-com billionaires erected million-dollar second homes. One home
even boasts 32,000-square-feet and its own trestle over the train
tracks. Growth is happening so fast that in one year — 2004
— the median sale price of a house jumped from $190,000 to
$260,000, and that’s just within the city limits. Along with
the influx of newcomers, parking downtown has become scarce,
inexpensive houses for those holding down $7-per-hour jobs are
dinosaurs, and skyrocketing property taxes boot older folks out of
homes they’ve been in for decades. This probably sounds like
old news to people living in Park City, Utah, Vail, Colo., or Sun
Valley, Idaho.
At the same time, new money has brought
amenities to this town, thanks to the city’s resort tax. The
potholes are gone, and the leafy streets of Whitefish sport bike
lanes and historic-looking street lamps, something June Cleaver
could be proud of.
Currently, Whitefish is building
bicycle and walking trails to connect neighborhoods. The town has
helped fund an athletic facility, a theater center, a much desired
swimming pool and a skateboard park. It is also helping to acquire
a bike trail outside city limits to link outlying neighborhoods and
open spaces.
When tax dollars fail to cover all the
expenses, donations fill in the gaps. The big money donations
don’t come from minimum-wage job holders; they come from
newcomers with money. But by adding all these amenities,
we’ve lost some of the devil-may-care personality that was
obvious in the town’s once untamed streets. Now, money is
shaping the town, and in a bittersweet way. It takes away open
space with one hand; it gives the community gifts with the other.
Becky Lomax is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org).
She writes in Whitefish, Montana.
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