Last Friday's issue of the Daily Post contains not one, but two, articles discussing the "gold" at the feet of downtown residents. Teddy Herzog and Bill Hudson weighed in from their perspectives on the latest manifestation of a bad economy — closure of the downtown City Market. They both seemingly remain optimistic in the long term — a viewpoint I respect, but doubt.
Basic economic models for rural communities have been changing for a generation. Today’s economic realities are forcing even more changes.
One significant exception to rural out-migration, as noted by the USDA Economic Research Service decade ago, were those communities with natural amenities, Such communities attracted second-home owners, retirees and tourists. In addition, recreation opportunities attracted twenty- and thirty-somethings.
Young people with children are the first and most impacted by a down-turn in the economy, and falling enrollments in Pagosa schools reflect this.
 Pagosa and Archuleta County benefited from both natural amenities and many recreational opportunities, and thrived as a result. Unfortunately, no forward-thinking was done, and needed upgrades to roads and services were squandered on short-term operations. There is no going back, and what lies ahead is open to speculation. It is the informed decisions made now that will ultimately decide whether residents, business owners, and property owners will retain value in their investment by creating a sustainable community in line with twenty-first century sensibilities.
Ah, yes. Gold. Having spent much of my adult life in the former mining camps of the Rocky Mountains, I have come to know something of this intoxicating metal. The first lesson I learned was that gold is always worth more in the ground than what you get after pulling it out of the ground. The first persons who may have learned this lesson were those optimistic souls of the middle ages that built their livelihoods on the dream of changing base metals into gold through “scientific” means. So many were engaged in creating gold from cheaper metals, they even got professional status as alchemists.
Alchemy, and my first lesson in gold came to mind as I read through Mr. Herzog's — and then Mr. Hudson's — opinion articles. Of course, they were talking about the local economy and only using gold as a metaphor for “prosperity”.
I too seek to create a metaphor; I am using alchemists as a metaphor for developers. Like alchemists, developers promise gold, but rarely deliver more than the base metals they start from, which is why so many large development ventures go belly-up or go the way of a fantasy.
Pagosa, like so many other mountain communities, has been blessed with the natural amenities that invite in the dreamers. The community has not taken stock of itself, it knows not what it is or what it wants to be, and this only encourages outside developers to decide for the community with grandiose developments like Fairfield, Aspen Springs, and most recently, Mr. Brown. If a community does not define itself, then someone will define it for them. Unlike Teddy Herzog, I blame the community rather than leadership for the failure to give definition to the community. Pagosa and Archuleta County would rather believe an alchemist can create gold.
There is a story about the mayor of Paris running into the street just in time to see the mob streaming toward the Bastille. He yells after them, "Where are you going; I am your leader and I can’t lead unless I know where you are headed." I have to say that this illustrates the situation we have here in Pagosa. Local leaders are so concerned about themselves, they have been oblivious to what people think; decisions are too often made in a top-down manner. Local leaders learn the public is disgruntled — too late to channel their energy into something positive.
This is not a chicken-or-the-egg thing; this community has to demand a say in its future; demand that its leaders understand and accept that a community has buy-in on decisions only if those decisions are manifested in an open, transparent and deliberative way; demand that our customs, culture and community be defined so decisions are made in the context of the community.
When Mr. Herzog says of the downtown that "there is no 'there' there", he is utilizing a rather unflattering cliché to describe a very serious issue. As good as the uptown core is, it was created on the promise of sprawl. Sprawl is no longer accepted as good planning; good planning today is all geared toward creating density and doing away with open air commercial areas like the uptown core. Good planning is turning back to traditional urbanism prevalent in this country before WWII. In other words, the future of this community lies in finding ways to reinvent both downtown and uptown.
Continuing to listen to the alchemists coming into this community to spin gold will not get it. This community has to get it, and maybe if people start moving in a direction of consensus, a leader will then step forward.
Beware the alchemists! |