Recession blessings
Christina Davidson, a correspondent for The Atlantic, has been touring the country on a "Recession Road Trip."
One recent stop was in Lolo, Mont., where local rancher Tom Maclay has been trying to build a major ski resort called Bitterroot on Lolo Peak. Some ski runs have already been cut.
Now it appears that the project could be a victim of the recession, with a major creditor threatening foreclosure.
According to Davidson's piece, most locals see this as a silver lining:
"Nope. I don't feel sorry for him one bit," one longtime resident says when I approach him in the parking lot of a local deli. "We didn't want it and he didn't give a damn. This isn't the perspective of poor folk resenting the wealthy local landowner. It's practicality. We didn't want the traffic, higher property taxes, expensive housing, and all the rich la-di-da yuppies that would have come with it. God bless this recession if it puts an end to that nightmare."
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