Oh, Little Towns.

 

Oh, Little Towns.

Around 1995, I began considering a place to retire. A co-worker mentioned the Crowsnest Pass, but I remembered it from the late sixties and it didn’t look great in those days. The friend told me it was now clean, “pure mountain air” and that fixer-upper little homes were selling for as low as $16,000. I drove over. That trip changed my life. Now I am an old-timer here. This is home.

In the beginning, it looked as if the place was declining, but so was the world economy. Every few years there is an adjustment when many poor people lose their savings and homes later to change around and start again. My real estate agent, a Swiss guy, told me he was waiting for the place to become like a European mountain town with a lot of little businesses, pretty homes, and many people vacationing away from the cities. There was a steady talk from old-timers about “heavy industry” and coal mining, but protecting the water took first consideration with governments, and mining was regulated by law, as I was told.

I didn’t know the background of the arguments yet decided that the place was a gem. It had the looks of a place that is on the verge of developing into a historic attractive self-sustained community housing some coal miners, folks seeking an old-style rural feeling, and businesses to cater to them. It had a reputation for being friendly and welcoming. On my first Christmas Eve here I saw “folks dressed up like Eskimos” heard church bells ringing, observed bright stars above snowy mountains, and placed a down payment.

When I moved here, I found out that there were many attempts to develop the towns that were often refused by the local population and their councils. Some people wanted the coal mines (heavy industry) to come back and nothing else. Others simply didn’t want the place to change but complained persistently about the small tax base and lack of money for improvements. Businesses started and died, a mall converted to a storage place, and new projects stood undeveloped for years. There were good reasons, I am sure, but I am telling what I saw.

I discovered a town in Colorado that is much like our towns. As a matter of fact, from the air, you could mistake it for the Crowsnest Pass. Its name is Crested Butte, and they call it a Zoom Boom town. It is a recent phenomenon that appeared since COVID started.

People from the big cities are looking for small, attractive, peaceful places to live in. Zoom and the internet at large make it possible to work and study from home. If the workers need some time in the city, they can rent their country homes out for a period of months or even a day like an Air B &| B. The income can finance the home. People moving in, even for a short term, often are much more well off than the old locals. Animosity is building up and we hear the old French revolution slogan “eat the rich” used.

Overall, the little towns that were looking for new residents to move in and pay local taxes, find their towns becoming too expensive to live or even rent in, and the new people may change the town’s character. Resentment is building. With the Zoom Boom, there is a fresh development and a noticeable shortage of service workers. We halted immigration for over a year. If you have working-class level employment, you may not be able to find a place that you can afford to live in. Where there was an unemployment problem now, under-employment makes things less affordable, especially for those on fixed incomes, which many old-timers are.

I realize that complaining is not the solution. I also know that blaming new people who invest in our community will not serve us, or the new people. When the province cuts money to education, healthcare, infrastructure building, municipality programs, recreation, transit, policing, and who knows what else, we must be prepared. Many are helpless to do anything. We need to figure out solutions other than waiting for the oil prices to rise and bring a windfall or new energy investors to return.

Instead of fighting for some foreign companies to mine our resources and sell them to other foreign countries, we could take initiative and help ourselves. If “heavy industry” will not work, a string of smaller businesses will do the same. We need modern-day solutions, not solutions that would have worked in the past but perhaps are outdated. If kicking a dead horse doesn’t work, a fresh horse may be a good idea.

We have historic little towns near cities with relatively wonderful services. We have good people that can serve on council and do what’s good for us. There is potential here for a lot of light industries, and businesses on the internet or on the ground. Let’s attract them, help them (Not tax them to death) improve services and go on aggressively with the beautification plans that already began. Retain and market our advantages and use the skills and experience of those moving in. They love our place and want to help.

We see a push towards reducing services in rural areas designed to herd populations to cities, leaving the countryside to large corporations. It is slow yet effective. Fewer voters in rural areas will reduce our ability to influence politics. However, for most of us, it is a way of life worth preserving. Now, with the Zoom Boom, it is our chance to rebuild our communities up to modern standards.

We may never go back underground or even mine coal again, it’s in the courts, but can influence our and our children’s future. It takes having a vision and a plan of how to achieve it. Let’s show what country people, old and new, can do.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.