Prairie Mary has a very good (well, aren't they all?) essay on the inevitable conflicts that happen when the (relatively) rich and restless move to small towns and begin to throw their weight around. It is happening here too and I don't have a clue about what you can do about it, save having rural residency tests as Noel Perrin suggested in (I believe) Second Person Rural.
My favorite recent example is a woman who recently moved from Houston to an architect- designed house in a "subdivision" twenty- some miles north of our remote 900- person town-- you go north on a dirt road for 25 miles, then turn up a "road" that is a seasonal dry river bed to get there.
She doesn't think the schools in Magdalena are very good-- fair enough-- so she wants to send her kid to the charter school in the county seat, Socorro-- twenty six miles in another direction from Magdalena, which the only roads go through, and 2500 feet below, on the Rio Grande.
She wants there to be a bus. Free.
She didn't know that it snows here.
She won't even be able to leave her driveway if it rains.
7 comments:
You should write a book about it, Steve.
The area we lived in while we were in Tehachapi, CA, called Bear Valley had originally been designed as a retirement community. The plan was for retirees to come build their dream homes in a rural setting where peace and quiet could be found. Houses were built on minimum 1 acre lots (except around the golf course where they were smaller). When we got there, it had already begun to morph into a very remote LA suburban outpost. There were lots of families that had moved up from LA or Lancaster, though the jobs kept the breadwinners traveling back and forth. The land and housing were far less expensive than anywhere else in CA. That meant that there was usually one stay-at-home, or at least stay-in-town adult in the house with way too much time on his or her hands. Local politics were driven by those who weren't making the commute and had a personal agenda to promote.
So our nice, rural, equestrian-based community was quickly turning into a place where horse trails were being blocked by homeowners who came in and didn't like the dust from trail riders as they went by, or the smell of horse manure. There were lawsuits over trail easements, calls for installing sidewalks and street lights, complaints about the dangers of having wild creatures in close proximity to people, especially children. Fish and Game got called in frequently to trap out coyotes that liked to hang out in the morning near school bus stops.
People couldn't accept that Fluffy the cat or Spot the dog was actually part of the foodchain in our neighborhood. I lost count of the cats that came and went from our barn. The smart ones figured out how to survive there.
We had coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions out our back door, and at higher elevations, bears. The majority of the suburban transplants who were our neighbors had no appreciation for the absolutely wonderful environment we had the privilege to enjoy. They wanted it to be the neighborhood they left behind in the LA basin.
When we left Tehachapi, the trail that ran literally 30 feet behind our barn and was our property line had been declared an illegal trail. I couldn't ride off our lot and head down that trail anymore to meadow, or up the canyon to the equestrian center. I had to ride out our driveway and along the road to get to a "legal" trail. It was a sign of the trend in Bear Valley, and so it really was time for us to move on.
To Matt: It had better make real money because I would have to move fast!
To Connie: "They wanted it to be the neighborhood they left behind in the LA basin."
Those are the ones moving here now.
Actually, the story of the lady moving down a road that is a dry creek bed and then demanding that the world she does not know or even understand change to suit her needs would make a GREAT comedy SCREEN PLAY. "The kid needs a better school" is a perfect plot driver. It's a classic fish-out-of-water story in which the stupid townspeople would simply let the charging bull (crazy city lady) run on to the pole that they politely hold out for her (point out, but-braced to the ground of course). The daughter would turn out to be smarter than the mother, etc. For form you are looking at a 120-page script (one page per minute of film), with key plot points at pages 20 (end of setup) and 100 (the twist to the end) and with pages 20-100 being the crazy lady "going urban" on the the "poor peasants" who are not quite as dim as they first appear. And of course, you will need a few small side plots, maybe involving romantic cows and clever dogs. Meryl Streep will play the crazy lady and a nice portly unknown Mexican-Ameican actor will play her victorious protagonist (think Cheech Marin, but with waaaay more talent). This is a way better plot than Pirates of the Caribbean and a heck of a lot cheaper to shoot. Clint Eastwood will direct.
Patrick
Steve? Check Patrick! You don't get better advice than that. Call your agent. PHONE THIS ONE IN!
Weren't the John Nichols books of a similar theme? It's been a while since I read them...
What this woman needed was a copy of the homebuyers report which the UK "Socialist Nanny State" is proposing. Every house vendor will be required produce one for potential purchasers ( at a cost of around $2000!). It would include a copy of whether the property is susceptible to flooding - In this case , the woman would have been advised of the issue, and, hopefully , it would have probably scared her off ! That sounds like a case of "Good Riddance" - Why do these people want to leave their comforts of the City? I say let them stay there, and leave the countryside to thsoe who know and love it- faults , inconviences , and all !.
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