By John Mattingly Note: This is the second of a three-part series looking at the tension points between economic growth and environmental conservation. Growth: Like gravity, it’s the law. Though there are solid reasons for both adoring and admonishing growth, it’s actually circulating in our economic bloodstream. Our entire economic structure, from Generally Accepted Accounting …
By John Mattingly
In the late days of fall and early days of winter, we get long nights, we wrap ourselves, we resolve, and we make lists: the Top Tens of the prior year, acknowledging that at this time of year, the benign indifference of the universe is simply more precise.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – October 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory sits in the old mining camp of Gothic in Gunnison County. Since 1928, scientists have gone there to study birds, marmots, butterflies, and flowers in a relatively isolated spot away from much human activity.
Problem is, it’s not so isolated any more, given the growth in nearby Crested Butte as well as mountain tourism in general.
Essay by Martha Quillen
Growth – May 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES have more in common than they usually admit. For instance, both seem convinced that the world will soon be coming to an end.
Although different factions may quibble about the cause, they agree on the scenario. Either terrorists and the U.N. — or wars against terrorism and U.S. antagonism toward the U.N. — are bound to precipitate that eventuality. Or perhaps the cause will be sin, the Apocalypse, global warming, nuclear weapons, or environmental degradation.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – January 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mountain resort towns are often surrounded by public land, which means that there’s no place nearby to build new houses — even though the demand for housing might be increasing on account of economic growth that inspires more employment.
Essay by Ed Quillen
Growth – January 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE AMERICAN WEST is notorious for its “boom and bust” economy. In the past the booms and busts were tied to commodity prices; there was a mining boom in 1877 when silver was fetching $1.20 an ounce, a bust in 1893 when it was 78¢ an ounce and dropping, an energy boom in 1980 when crude oil was $38 a barrel, a bust in 1983 when it was $12 and dropping.
Letter from Joanna Sampson
Growth – August 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Watch out, Central Colorado!
Ed & Martha:
A pesky varmint is overrunning the mountains and plains of Eastern Colorado and appears to be spreading to other parts of the state. This varmint multiplies rapidly. It ruins its environment, destroying as it advances. It is dirtier than the infamous pack rat, and spreads filth into the air, water, and soil.
Essay by Paul Tolme
Growth – August 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
AS COMMUNITIES across the West ponder strategies for avoiding sprawl, they might look to Ward, Colo., for inspiration. This tiny mountain town in booming Boulder County has cooked up a cheap and easy recipe for reining in growth: Be strange, and the gentrifiers will stay away.
Essay by Kenneth Munsell
Growth – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
I SAW GEORGE at the lumber yard a week or so ago. He lives in Roslyn, a nearby small town in the mountains. He moved there perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, bought a house cheap and has survived, perhaps even prospered, since that time. The picturesque, old, coal-mining community fell on hard times after the mines closed in the late 1950s. Many residents even locked their homes and just walked away — who’d want to buy a house there? The town became virtually a ghost town.
Sidebar by Laura Mccall
Growth – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
SOURCES
Wallace Stegner, The American West As Living Place, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987.
Essay by Laura Mccall
Growth – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
IN The American West as Living Space, historian and Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Wallace Stegner asked his readers to consider the West “as both a space alive with all manner of beings and as a space to be lived in and responded to,” cherished and preserved. Stegner noted that urban and rural sprawl threaten most regions of the United States yet pose particular dangers to the American West. Uniquely delicate ecosystems, limited wildlife habitat for scores of endangered species, and sustainable water supplies are environmental realities. The nature of current development, with its emphasis on tract homes over former farm and rangeland, coupled with the peculiarly Western dependence on the automobile, are eroding our sense of community and identification with the land and the past.
Column by George Sibley
Growth – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
ONE OF THE MOST PERNICIOUS growth-at-any-cost arguments is the one that says that without economic growth our children will have to leave their homes and make their living elsewhere. This argument claims that our real economic problem in the West is “strident opposition to development that stifles opportunities for our children and forces our children outward.”
Essay by Stephen Lyons
Growth – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
My 21-year-old daughter is finally leaving the small western college town she grew up in for a large West Coast city, and I couldn’t be happier. After low wages and a cul de sac of career opportunities she finally figured out that her quality of life would increase educationally, culturally and, most importantly, vocationally in a metropolitan setting.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – April 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Does residential development pay in rural areas?
Not in Custer County, according to a study conducted by the San Isabel Foundation, the Custer Heritage Committee, the Sonoran Institute, and the American Farmland Trust.
They analyzed data from 1998, and came to these conclusions in their Cost of Community Services survey:
Essay by Norm Wallen
Growth and Local Politics – June 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
ANYONE WHO LIVES in a growing western community can understand how development changes the character of the place they live. But most of us are uninformed about the development process itself. We curse the powers that be when new subdivisions and strip-malls go up, or we get stuck in traffic jams that didn’t exist last year, but we don’t really understand the rules, both hidden and apparent, that created this new reality.
Letter by Jim Ludwig
Growth – April 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
`No’ isn’t the right answer to every question of change
Editors:
I beg to differ with Ken Wright. (Just say No)
I, too, am a relative newcomer to Colorado, only forty-nine years ago. But I have been here long enough to have seen the day that he yearns to preserve. To quote Ken, “I say stop it all: Keep the roads a mess, the infrastructure archaic, the water scarce, and the transportation hellish.”
Essay by Ken Wright
Growth – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
FOR TWO YEARS I wrote an environmental column for a small newspaper in western Colorado.
It wasn’t hard work, really. I just rambled on for 600 words each week about the rugged landscape around us and then offered some helpful observations and suggestions: that housing developments really aren’t good elk habitat, that the local ski area is big enough already, that the Forest Service shouldn’t execute one of the area’s last old-growth Ponderosa stands, that the Bureau of Reclamation shouldn’t insert yet another concrete suppository in yet another nearby river, and so on.
Letter by Randy Russell
Growth – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Beware the Tomato Plot
With tomatoes at $2.99 a pound at Safeway this morning (and not that good looking at that) I have two possible solutions, and some observations:
1) We might as well all cultivate a liking for steak as part of our regular salad diet. Organic Coleman Beef wouldn’t cost that much more…
Letter by Jim Ludwig
Growth – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Geezers have long been troubled by continued growth in government
To the Editors;
Re: Government and Democracy, January 1999 Colorado Central.
I am intrigued by Martha’s realization that Government is continuing to expand just for the sake of expanding. This is something we old geezers have been complaining about for years, usually to the amusement of a younger and more liberal population. Either Martha’s awakening is due to astute reasoning or that horribly uncontrollable factor called aging, but whatever reason, it is good to see.
Letter by Sam Halburian
Growth – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Despite growth, most of us are worse off than we were
Dear Editor,
Re: Letter from the editors, January 1999.
Your letter on economic “growth” overlooked an important paradox. Namely, that the “richer” we get the less we seem able to afford. When economic numbers increase, why is there not a commensurate increase in our individual or collective wherewithal?
Letter by Chris Dickey
Growth – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Don’t blame the government for all its recent growth
Martha:
I appreciated your different approach to the talked-to-death dilemma of growth in the January edition. The real issue, at least in Central Colorado, is not population expansion. The forces which are impacting the lives of those of us who live here are rooted in economics, as you point out. However, I also believe that the attitudes which characterize public opinion these days have as much or more to do with disturbing trends such as burgeoning government bureaucracy.
Letter by Slim Wolfe
Growth – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Research Reveals Growth-Free Region in the West!
Let’s All Pounce before the other guy finds out!
Editors:
Son of a Gun! I thought this last road trip might cure me of the journalism habit but here I am in your face again. Like your other journalist Hal Walter, I was thinking about a move. He’s lucky he’s being crowded out by a trophy home. I’ve got trophy modulars sprouting like mushrooms, and yuppified hot springs, and road rage in the summer. I remembered a rural region that might still be stuck in the 60s. I went to take a look.
Letter by Clint Driscoll
Growth – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Boomtown Blues is another good book about our changes
Dear Ed,
Thanks for the review of Peter Decker’s Old Fences, New Neighbors. The book is a bit pricey, even with First Street’s discount, but worth it for the quotes which can be pulled from it. You are quite right, Decker has a sharp eye and a sympathetic view of the close-knit society which existed around Ridgway before the big land rush in the ’80s and ’90s destroyed it. The same situation exists throughout the state and his observations can apply as much to Custer or Chaffee County as to Ouray County.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Minnesotan claims Californians are converting Coloradans
“Republicans [in California] are doing badly not only because they are alienating immigrants but because their own supporters are becoming emigrants.
Review by Ed Quillen
Growth – November 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Old Fences, New Neighbors
by Peter R. Decker
Published in 1998 by the University of Arizona Press
ISBN 0-8165-1905-6
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – November 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
A couple of years ago, we ran an article by Joel Kotkin which discussed “The Valhalla Syndrome” — the tendency of politically conservative white suburbanites to flee their current enclaves and look for new homes in the Interior West.
One of the major sources of such emigrants is Orange County, Calif., and its major newspaper, the Orange County Register, featured Salida in a travel feature on Sept. 13.
Letter by Lindell Cline
Growth – October 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Pretending we aren’t here will not solve our problems
To the Editor:
Regarding the welcome and in some cases reasonable August and September discussion on overpopulation, excessive growth, and mining:
Essay by Dave Gowdey
Growth – October 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Urban immigration is another name for cutural genocide
THIS YEAR, for the first time since Arizona was settled, hunting will not be allowed in the Walnut Canyon area around Flagstaff. The wealthy new inhabitants of the area, from Southern California mostly, don’t favor hunting.
Essay by Ron Baird
Growth – September 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
I KNOW IT SOUNDS LIKE A BAD DREAM or even the plot to a third-rate science fiction movie. But a couple of months ago, I “awoke” to find myself a stranger in my own town — Boulder, Colo. — a place I’ve lived near and worked in for 20 years.
I had just quit a reporting job I held for 10 years, a job in which I wrote about the foibles, peccadilloes, felonies and misdemeanors, scams, triumphs and trends of the populace.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – May 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Growths in Colorado Counties
Nat’l Pct.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – March 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Is the state government secretly working to end this boom?
The most important reasons for businesses to locate in Colorado are quality of life and quality of workforce. That’s the conclusion of a poll conducted recently by the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.
Ranking right behindwere the state’s tax structure, surface transportation system, and K-12 education system.
Letter from Eugene D. Lorig
Growth – August 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Valley of the Shadow
Ed and Martha:
All right, all right, you don’t have to hound me, here’s my twenty for another year.
We are leaving the I-70 Corridor, the so-called Vail Valley, which now stretches from Georgetown to Glenwood Springs. We are leaving the Valley of the Shadow of Greed, and henceforth shall fear no evil, for the shanty peddlers are not with us. Or only a few.
Essay by Martha & Ed Quillen
Growth – May 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Recently the U.S. Bureau of the Census released the July 1996 estimates of population. These census figures reflect a little more than six years of change since the official census on April 1, 1990. So what do we find in the new numbers?
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – November 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
Funny, none of the winners came to accept their awards
Remember Gov. Roy Romer’s “Smart Growth Summit” in 1995? From it emerged 14 guiding principles, such as sustainability, public participation, and coördination of planning. Our governor now issues annual Smart Growth Awards to projects which best follow the principles.
Letter from Bruce A. Collins
Growth – October 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
How Silt Happens
(After he read about Salida’s adventures with a proposed comprehensive master plan, Bruce Collins sent this letter about how plans have developed on the Western Slope.)
Letter from Eugene Lorig
Growth – July 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I read somewhere that people were happier during the Great Depression than in subsequent prosperity. Things were rough, but most of us had enough to eat, and there was a community of feeling we don’t have any more, at least around here.
Sidebar by Marcia Darnell
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
I have to credit Roy Romer. Most government officials faced with a problem huddle with their cronies in the locker room and say, “What are we gonna do?” Romer is, at the least, making a show of talking to The People. At best, he’s actually listening and acting on the input he receives.
Article by Marcia Darnell
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Gov. Roy Romer’s fifth Smart Growth Summit in Alamosa began with the introduction of an obscure journalist named “Ed Quillian,” who presented a compelling argument for his assertion that Chicago won the Mexican War.
Sidebar by Martha Quillen
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
About the governor’s conferences on “Smart Growth”:
“Since this is the third in a series, how smart are we getting?”Jerry Swingle, Western Colorado Congress
Essay by Martha Quillen
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Visioning conferences. Smart Growth Summits. Meetings. Committees. Symposiums. Seminars. Last month, Ed and I attended three conferences concerning growth — and thereby missed dozens of similar gatherings.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Colorado’s population is growing at a faster rate than Africa’s, which means a new Denver in five years, and New Mexico is growing faster than Brazil or India.
Brief by Central Staff
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
“It is nuts around here. We have been discovered.” So said Julie Hupper, town manager of Buena Vista, in the April 23 edition of the Denver Post.
Article by Sue Conroe
Growth – May 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
In response to a growing sense of alarm at the consequences of rampant growth in Colorado, Governor Romer has initiated a series of growth summits. And as the Director of the Heart of the Rockies Chamber of Commerce, I attended one of those conferences on March 22 along with several other representatives from Chaffee County.
Essay by Ellen Miller
Growth – April 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Another symptom of Colorado’s growth is upon us. There’s a new area code going in for the Western Slope and northern Colorado. It will be 970. The southern part of the state got its new code 719, several years ago. Now U.S. West, with its headquarters in Denver and its so-called service operations pulling back to the metrocentric area even more, has decided to leave only the metro zone in the 303 code.