When Eagles Fly
Arn Menconi
Posted: 04.03.2008 / 5:39 AM EDT
The town of Eagle can be considered a metaphor for boom towns in America. It is a small town of 5000 people that grew by 100% in the last 5 years. My wife and two children are one of those families that decided to move “down valley” from the resorts area for a more laid back rural sort of life style.
Shortly afterwards, I started to realize that the land use planning and infrastructure for the town was not able to keep up with fast pace growth. A former town trustee told me, “we had no idea that the growth would come so fast and that we didn’t prepared for it.” Now, the town is attempting to plan for your typical large shopping mall with housing and an interchange to try and find new sales tax dollars to pay for its infrastructure needs. Sound familiar?
It is the, “we grew so fast, we need to grow more, to keep up with the growing” land use patterns of the last few decades. In return, we lose small town character, get more shopping that we don’t need, crime increases and so do urban needs. Thankfully, the real estate community feels vindicated. And, peoples’ fears that if we aren’t growing were dying feels cured. The only thing that really likes to grow more than boom towns is cancer cells. It is what the economist John Kenneth Galbreth called “irrational exuberance” of economic behavior.
We are now embarking on the boom and bust town cycle of the Gold Rush era in the late 1800’s. With all the national data on retailers failing, bond lending drying up and never enough employees in a valley to fill the service sector jobs, we think we are different and can be successful.
How should a boom town determine success? Should it evaluate its lose of night sky? Walking into café and shops and knowing the owners and their children? Having to lock your car door when you run into the bank or post office?
This is Our Town. This is not new this is old, see it before, why repeat the same mistake as everyone else.
One of the first times I can to this town 15 years ago, I thought God this is a small town, who lives here? Now, I know. I do.
April 5th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
My little town is having awful problems caused by crazy growth. This is not even a boom town, but the population and the eek! McMansions have just come like locusts. I’ve never understood the “grow or die” mentality. It’s like once people get elected to be mayors of little towns, they start thinking how much cooler it would be if they were mayors of big towns. There goes the peace, the clean air, the good schools, the safe roads. But here come the tax dollars, which we would not need if the city council could ever say no to a new development. Buddy, I feel your pain.