Essay by Kirk Littlefield
Economy – May 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
IS THE WEST changing for the worse or is it simply changing?
Growing up, I had the tendency to believe the former: The mountains that I loved were going to be ruined forever by the endless surge of newcomers.
I believed this because I loved the mountains surrounding me and to see new trophy homes sprouting up in the most unlikely places, always in full view, made me feel as though the scenery was being stolen.
Previously unbroken mountain views were now subjected to the horrors of 4,000-plus square foot houses being placed in their midst. The places I used to play in were now fenced off. I resented the ranchettes that split up my friends’ family farms and I resented those who had the nerve to move into my territory.
As I got older and prepared to enter the working world my views were forced to shift a bit. I still resented the “newbies,” as my friends and I referred to them, but I came to realize that I would have to learn to tolerate them.
In my rural west, the only jobs available to most of us were in the dominant service industry. This industry offered a paycheck for serving the affluent new residents, so I had to swallow my pride and take a job at a local fast-food joint. The newbies were still nothing short of evil in my eye, but now they were the indirect source of my wages.
Then came high school graduation. Moving to far-away cities where real jobs were plentiful is all that my friends and I talked about. All of us did scatter, many of my friends moving to exotic places like Chicago and Philadelphia.
Me, I simply moved to a different small town in the rural west. I took another low-paying job serving people wealthier than I. But this time was different.
Yes, my new hometown was experiencing the same proliferation of newbies and yes, they still built their unsightly houses in obscene locations, but this move was my choice. I was faced with two decisions: I was either going to have to admit that I was wrong in moving here or I was going to have to look at my situation in a different perspective. I knew I belonged in these mountains so I changed my views.
I realized that the new people moving to the west were the sources of business in the places I worked. They were, in fact, the source of income for me and most of the people I knew.
I realized that if more people moved in, more businesses would open, creating more jobs for more new people as well as for the already established local population. High-school and just-out-of-high-school people will have job opportunities available to them because of the growing population.
I’m only twenty-one years old so I know: My generation is used to fleeing. We’re still not out of the habit. But for the first time in our lives, we may not have to flee.
GRANTED, MANY OF US will still choose to leave the small towns that we grew up in, but it’s not necessarily because we have to. Because of the burgeoning population of the west, more jobs are becoming available, allowing us to stay.
We now have the choice of staying in our small hometowns because we can find jobs that are as close as home. Unfortunately, many of these jobs are still low-paying service jobs. But even these jobs open opportunities for bigger and better things. I still only make in the $8 an hour range, but with every job change it gets better, and I don’t have to leave my small mountain town.
While many young people will always want to leave the rural west in search of a more exciting life in the city, it is now a choice, not a necessity of survival. We owe a lot of this to the newbies and the jobs they bring with them.
It may be traitorous of me, but I’m willing to share my mountains to be able to live in them as well. And I don’t stand alone on this decision. I once asked a friend of mine (who happens to work at the local golf course in the summer and the local ski resort in the winter) why she stays in this area when there may be better jobs elsewhere.
“Are you kidding,” she replied. “I’d never be able to leave these mountains and I’m thankful I even get to live here.” I think she speaks for a lot of my Western generation.
Kirk Littlefield lives and works in Del Norte.
