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» opinion |
| – A bittersweet victory Flagstaff, Ariz., demolishes a developer's dreams. |
| – A castle is not a home A Colorado resident watches a monster home rise. |
| – Gunning down growth initiatives In the New West, the boosters and boomers still rule. |
Next thing you know, people are calling your po-dunk home town "cool" and "the next Moab." Outside Magazine puts it on its list of the Top Ten Hippest Small Towns. There's a rush on real estate and housing prices shoot through the roof. You don't know where you are anymore. You don't recognize the neighbors. You're overwhelmed and outpriced and searching for the next undiscovered town where you can find some peace and quiet.
It's happening around the West, as urban areas such as Tucson, Denver and Salt Lake City explode. This sends residents fleeing to ski towns national park gateway communities and even dusty, out-of-the-way cow towns.
While no community has discovered a silver bullet for sprawl, the remedies are many. Some communities are reining in developers with planning and zoning rules. While zoning has met venomous opposition from the property rights crowd, it has also found some surprising champions.
Other communities are scrambling to protect open space. Utah's Summit County charges developers impact fees, which help save ranchland and parks. A sales tax in Crested Butte, Colo., has raised thousands of dollars to buy and protect open space. Telluride, Colo., has even considered condemning a mountain meadow to stop developers. And around the region, land trusts are safeguarding scenery and keeping ranchers in business.
All this has produced some dramatic victories. Residents of Flagstaff, Ariz., fought off a developer who wanted to build a gated golf course community. Tomé, New Mexico, turned around the state highway department, which planned to build a four-lane highway through town. Garfield County, Colo., and Stehekin, Wash., have dashed the hopes of developers. Even California, so often scapegoated as the source of sprawl, has seen some success in keeping small towns small.
Controlling growth does not come without its drawbacks, however. Boulder, Colo., one of the leaders in growth management, has watched housing costs skyrocket and mobs of Front Range residents flock to its parks. Another visionary town, Portland Ore., must help low and middle class residents hang on as poor neighborhoods go upscale.
The next battleground for growth is likely to be in the state political arena. In 2000, citizens in Colorado and Arizona put smart-growth initiatives on the ballots. While both initiatives failed badly in the face of opposition from developers, legislators are now searching for solutions.
It's an ugly and time consuming struggle, but in the end, it will decide if the West keeps its gritty, small-town character and wide-open spaces, or if will become just another piece of strip-malled, subdivided America.
-- Greg Hanscom
Grappling
with Growth