Funny write up about the local scene
You can recognize them immediately. Sporting the latest athleisure wear by Fjallraven or Kuhl and swinging around some type of nostalgic, cedar canteen, or perhaps wearing ostrich cowboy boots, or maybe even driving a new Tesla, the hordes of privileged tourists from America’s wealthy urban centers have descended upon the West. Like trendy harbingers of death, they’re influencers with expensive cameras, loaded financiers from the Yellowstone Club, shamanic healers from the Bay Area, advertising executives from New York, and regular tourists from all points between.
Well, to be fair, they’ve been here for about a month now, ever since Gov. Bullock ordered the state’s borders open to tourists with no quarantine. It’s a form of elite escapism that nobody can really blame the wealthy and privileged for. Who wants to deal with the sick in crowded, violent cities? Especially during what should be another glorious American summer vacation. Except that it’s not.
While the coronavirus pandemic ratchets up, and civil unrest boils over, it’s obvious that mountain towns like Bozeman have become some sort of escape valve for those who just can’t be bothered to deal with it all.
Every time a Mercedes Sprinter van drives by, I hawk-eye the license plates. Are they from Montana? Idaho might be okay, maybe. There’s the requisite fly rod box, color-matched jerry cans, even a few Patagonia stickers for good measure. These $100,000 vehicles glisten like social media showpieces, home to cashed-up couples from California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, pretending to be free-spirited nomads while working in software design and parking at the local trailhead or searching for wi-fi at the local coffee shop like rabid huskies in a meat market.
Folks living the hashtag “vanlife” because it’s trendy to leave all that negative energy behind during a pandemic, especially when you can document it on social media. I think this type of behavior is the western hipster’s equivalent of your father’s gold Rolex or aunt Judy’s gratuitous fur coat. The status symbols of the New West have triumphantly arrived.
So, you’re a psychedelic therapist who micro doses five days a week? A Google executive? A professional illustrator who specializes in flower art? Thanks for the visit, but please go home when you’re finished spending money. I sincerely hope you don’t have the sudden realization that you should actually move to Bozeman to escape the doldrums of suburbia or some infected inner city landscape where police clash with protesters on TV.
Sorry, bub. You’re not the first to experience this lightning strike of common sense. Folks have been moving to Bozeman long before I ever did, and they’ve been exploring the mountains, rivers, forests and sagebrush looking for the good life just about as long as anyone can remember.
Don’t you think millions of Americans would do the same thing if they could afford to pull up stakes like some modern, dust-bowl refugees and escape this societal dumpster fire currently raging throughout our country?
Well, actually it’s been happening for quite a while now. Check out Bozeman’s local job postings for a few hundred reasons why an even greater influx of wealthy, possibly diseased telecommuters who stash money is a bad idea. Here, you’ll see plenty of jobs in the service industry paying between $10 and $15 per hour, but very few offering career benefits or a livable wage. In fact, Montana’s median wage is just $20.47 (according to the DLI), which is one of the lowest in the nation.
Factor in the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment, $1,200, and the average cost for a single-family home, $510,000, and you’ll quickly see the economics are grim for working-class people in our community. There are very few affordable housing options, and urban sprawl continues to creep into valley pasturelands under the guise of overpriced tract homes with cheap finishes as far as the eye can see.
So, what’s a good Montanan to do? Thank our wealthy benefactors who have decided to grace us with their metropolitan cash in exchange for fresh air, good fishing, and fewer coronavirus cases? Placate them with more breweries and restaurants? Perhaps we just train our workforce to build bigger and more ostentatious mountain lodges for them to hunker down in, complete with elk-antler chandeliers and wrought-iron sculptures of eagles and rams?
Or, do we take this time to better organize and pay teachers, find safer ways to educate our students (who are threatened by the same outbreak of disease, despite contrary rumors), pump our economic stimulus dollars into new business ventures, build attractive affordable housing, and figure out how to bring high-paying jobs into Montana?
Are you ready to buy a ticket out of this pandemic? Which ticket is Montana trying to sell you?
You can recognize them immediately. Sporting the latest athleisure wear by Fjallraven or Kuhl and swinging around some type of nostalgic, cedar canteen, or perhaps wearing ostrich cowboy boots, or maybe even driving a new Tesla, the hordes of privileged tourists from America’s wealthy urban centers have descended upon the West. Like trendy harbingers of death, they’re influencers with expensive cameras, loaded financiers from the Yellowstone Club, shamanic healers from the Bay Area, advertising executives from New York, and regular tourists from all points between.
Well, to be fair, they’ve been here for about a month now, ever since Gov. Bullock ordered the state’s borders open to tourists with no quarantine. It’s a form of elite escapism that nobody can really blame the wealthy and privileged for. Who wants to deal with the sick in crowded, violent cities? Especially during what should be another glorious American summer vacation. Except that it’s not.
While the coronavirus pandemic ratchets up, and civil unrest boils over, it’s obvious that mountain towns like Bozeman have become some sort of escape valve for those who just can’t be bothered to deal with it all.
Every time a Mercedes Sprinter van drives by, I hawk-eye the license plates. Are they from Montana? Idaho might be okay, maybe. There’s the requisite fly rod box, color-matched jerry cans, even a few Patagonia stickers for good measure. These $100,000 vehicles glisten like social media showpieces, home to cashed-up couples from California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, pretending to be free-spirited nomads while working in software design and parking at the local trailhead or searching for wi-fi at the local coffee shop like rabid huskies in a meat market.
Folks living the hashtag “vanlife” because it’s trendy to leave all that negative energy behind during a pandemic, especially when you can document it on social media. I think this type of behavior is the western hipster’s equivalent of your father’s gold Rolex or aunt Judy’s gratuitous fur coat. The status symbols of the New West have triumphantly arrived.
So, you’re a psychedelic therapist who micro doses five days a week? A Google executive? A professional illustrator who specializes in flower art? Thanks for the visit, but please go home when you’re finished spending money. I sincerely hope you don’t have the sudden realization that you should actually move to Bozeman to escape the doldrums of suburbia or some infected inner city landscape where police clash with protesters on TV.
Sorry, bub. You’re not the first to experience this lightning strike of common sense. Folks have been moving to Bozeman long before I ever did, and they’ve been exploring the mountains, rivers, forests and sagebrush looking for the good life just about as long as anyone can remember.
Don’t you think millions of Americans would do the same thing if they could afford to pull up stakes like some modern, dust-bowl refugees and escape this societal dumpster fire currently raging throughout our country?
Well, actually it’s been happening for quite a while now. Check out Bozeman’s local job postings for a few hundred reasons why an even greater influx of wealthy, possibly diseased telecommuters who stash money is a bad idea. Here, you’ll see plenty of jobs in the service industry paying between $10 and $15 per hour, but very few offering career benefits or a livable wage. In fact, Montana’s median wage is just $20.47 (according to the DLI), which is one of the lowest in the nation.
Factor in the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment, $1,200, and the average cost for a single-family home, $510,000, and you’ll quickly see the economics are grim for working-class people in our community. There are very few affordable housing options, and urban sprawl continues to creep into valley pasturelands under the guise of overpriced tract homes with cheap finishes as far as the eye can see.
So, what’s a good Montanan to do? Thank our wealthy benefactors who have decided to grace us with their metropolitan cash in exchange for fresh air, good fishing, and fewer coronavirus cases? Placate them with more breweries and restaurants? Perhaps we just train our workforce to build bigger and more ostentatious mountain lodges for them to hunker down in, complete with elk-antler chandeliers and wrought-iron sculptures of eagles and rams?
Or, do we take this time to better organize and pay teachers, find safer ways to educate our students (who are threatened by the same outbreak of disease, despite contrary rumors), pump our economic stimulus dollars into new business ventures, build attractive affordable housing, and figure out how to bring high-paying jobs into Montana?
Are you ready to buy a ticket out of this pandemic? Which ticket is Montana trying to sell you?
