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A common observation hereabouts is that there's
nothing wrong with Colorado that two hard winters and a
general economic collapse wouldn't cure.
Perhaps that explains certain poll results. First take Al Gore at his word that electing him would continue the current economic expansion, with the implication that electing Bush the Younger would derail the economy. Then observe that the polls make Colorado pretty much a lock for Bush.
Now note that during the dozen years of the last two Republican presidencies, our mines and mills closed, Denver was a city of empty office towers, and Colorado began losing population for the first time since 1870.
So, one might wonder if that's what Coloradans are after
when the polls show such strong support for both
controlling growth
and electing G.W.
Bush.
The problems of excessive growth in the hinterlands, fueled by money made elsewhere, have been fervently criticized here and in many other forums: construction in various Stupid Zones that transforms normal natural events into threats to life and property, the development of a master-servant caste system in what was once a rather egalitarian social environment, upscale rural homeowners arranging to close previously public roads so that they enjoy private preserves on nearby public lands, etc.
But these forces are also attacking urban areas. Last week, the Post carried two such stories.
A Catholic Worker soup kitchen that provided free meals to all comers on Capitol Hill had to close because the new neighbors began complaining about its clientele.
Capitol Hill used to offer relatively cheap apartments and storefronts, thereby allowing residents and entrepreneurs the opportunity to think about something besides money.
But now there are $300,000 condos being sold half a block from the soup kitchen. And the people moving into such residences aren't willing to live and let live -- they want the neighborhood improved, and in this country, that means forcing the poor to go elsewhere.
That was in Wednesday's paper. Thursday's Post reported
that the Central YMCA in Denver, which has 189 downtown
rooms that even dishwashers can afford, is up for sale, and
interested parties are considering the property for
office space, condominiums, rental apartments, even a
hotel.
But not a rooming house for people who don't have six-figure incomes.
It isn't just the poor who suffer from these invasions. For many years, I've thought that society needs cheap places because cheap places foster diversity and innovation. Cheap places mean a low overhead, and a low overhead means you can try new things. That is, you're more likely to quit your day job and pursue your passion if your house payment is $300 a month than when it's $3,000 a month.
This argument was made in the June, 2000, edition of the Washington Monthly by a pseudonymous Tom Wool, writing about the effects of money invading our nation's capital.
The future begins in low-rent zones; they are the
kitchens of the next thing. The original Apple computers
came from a garage; Microsoft manages its monopoly from a
sprawling office campus. In Washington, where business is
policy and (occasionally) ideas, cheap office space is the
equivalent of Steve Jobs' family garage. When it
disappears, so does thinking that challenges the dominion
of the moneyed.
And when neighborhoods gentrify, rents go up, and
this turns the inner compass needle toward a paycheck,
even in people who'd rather think of something
else.
It appears that the current economic expansion (which seems to be reflected here only in what the county assessor thinks my house is worth) is destroying cheap places, be they in the boondocks or in the cities.
Granted, cheap places have a fair number of disgusting people. But they also have a lot of interesting people doing interesting things. Without the dollar pressure of high rents, the tinkerer has time to invent, the artist time to experiment, the cab driver time to write, the retailer the opportunity to take a chance on something new that might not sell quickly.
Perhaps it would be possible to preserve some cheap
places, on the grounds that the represent our cultural,
technical and intellectual seed corn,
but how?
Perhaps Al Gore has the right idea, if indeed a vote for
the Shrub is a vote for an economic contraction. Nothing
else seems to make it possible for us to think about
something besides money.
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