yonder
yonder's JournalYes, the purchasing power of people from other areas is undeniable.
True or not, one local take is newcomers can often buy two or three times the house compared to where they're from. I don't doubt that is the case for many people, despite their political/religious persuasion.
The Boise area is thriving with an excellent quality of life, jobs, an okay arts/cultural scene, low crime, easily accessible public lands/outdoor opportunities and a decent university — a great place to raise a family — and one reason I planted myself here those many years ago. But one doesn't have to travel far from this purplish area to find themselves in backwardsville either. Those attributes are attractive to many and have resulted in the crazy growth southwest Idaho has experienced in the last couple of decades.
Of course with that growth come the downsides, eventually but surely. Long gone are the days of being able to drive across town in 10-15 minutes. We've noticed an increase in the general snarliness and impatience of people and I suspect that will continue to grow as things get more crowded.
In high school I read an essay by Thoreau or perhaps Emerson that has stayed with me because it applies to most everything. I think it was titled Compensation. Basically, you can't get something for nothing, everything has a price. Joni Mitchell sang "They Paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot". All true, IMO and it certainly applies here. The very things that make a place attractive will eventually be the cause of its undesirability.
Your young friends who came here from Washington - I believe they made a good choice and were not too late in making their decision. I would be curious how they like it so far.
I moved to southern Idaho 44 years ago to escape the in-migration
of folks to the front range of my native Colorado. Except for the in-place RW politics here, I'd found my own slice of heaven with plenty of decent Western weather, gorgeous, wide open space and far fewer people. Despite the similar influx of people now, those characteristics, though impacted, are still available.
My wife and I are too old to pick up and try moving again. And really, we wouldn't want to. We'll take our chances in the south here with odd politics, increasingly smoky, late summer skies, Mormons (with regular cycles of their namesake crickets which aren't really crickets), the very rare tornado, much rarer serious earthquakes and hopefully rarer still, far-in-the future lava flows.
However, those redoubt-hungry transplants in their new woodland paradise up north might get chased out by Bigfoot, the ever increasing chance of another Wallace-style Big Burn or far more likely: getting eaten alive by their particular brand of religion they think is called Christianity. They'll get tired of trying to out kook themselves.
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