I Blight
by Sheila Velazquez
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 19, 2006



 

I can walk the length of my rented apartment in sixteen strides, the width in four or five, depending on whether I want to use the bathroom or not. It is the smallest place I have ever lived in, but I love it, with its four windows and three porches which combined about equal the square footage of the apartment itself. From my front porch I can see the mountains and closer, the multi-story crane lifting lumber into place for the pseudo New England-style townhouses being built a few blocks away, which are selling for nearly one million bucks. The neighborhood in which I live, however, has been designated as "blighted."

Bozeman, Mont. is hot. Speculators and developers drool as they anticipate buying up the neat, colorful little cottages that sit close together, the tiny yards of which burst into bloom this time of year. The occupants are working-class people. Some are smoke jumpers and away from home for much of the dry summer. Others work in service jobs or the arts or are self-employed dreamers. There are lots of babies. I see them peeking out of sacks strapped to the backs or fronts of their young mothers and fathers as they walk home from picking up the ingredients for dinner, often in the rain or snow. Old cars and trucks are parked at the curb, some sporting bumper stickers that read, "I Blight."

Actually, on many streets there are no curbs, one of the criteria used in declaring this an urban renewal district. Seems that a strong sense of community, as demonstrated by the active neighborhood association, is no longer one of the defining factors in assessing the quality of a neighborhood--curbs are. This is a mixed-use area, and people drive only when necessary. We can walk to the post office, park, a family-owned grocery and meat market, the library, and the new Italian bakery that is a three-block walk away, owned by a family from St. Bernard Parish that moved here after Katrina. We pass untempted by the high-priced galleries, gourmet food shops and antique stores that have replaced independent drugstores and cowboy bars on Main St. as we return to one of the most lusted-after dozen or so square blocks of real estate in the West. Resistance runs high.

There is almost no affordable housing in Bozeman, and it isn't unusual for the owner of an expensive home to buy the more beat-up house or apartment building next door and tear it down just so that he won't have to look at it. Houses are bought and removed from lots so that new homes can be built on their very valuable footprints. Officials who ignore what is happening to the town argue that it isn't fair to expect developers to include a percentage of low-income housing in their plans, but it is fair, I guess, to expect construction workers to live out of cars -- because there is nowhere else for them to live. Here in the northeast part of town, some rehab of old unused commercial structures has begun. Empty grain silos and other buildings will soon become residential units that will cost more than anyone in the neighborhood can afford.

Bozeman has become so expensive that middle-class families have moved to surrounding areas, except that the prices of homes in growing towns like Belgrade, Three Forks, Manhattan and Livingston have also doubled, and now workers are faced with long costly commutes. South of Bozeman lies Big Sky, which provides plenty of jobs for tradesmen and the other workers who serve the affluent, but which also provides no low-cost housing for working people, including the many migrants who have traveled north to meet the demand for labor to build trophy homes. There's plenty of room for the rich, however, including at the Yellowstone Club, which offers great views, winter sports and golf. The Yellowstone Club World group, which owns villas on the Mexican coast, a castle in France, and a private island in the Caribbean, recently purchased more than 3,000 acres near Cody, Wyo. that is being named Buffalo Bill Ranch. Memberships run between $3 million and $10 million and include access to the club's private planes and yachts. The first twenty-five memberships sold out in one day.

Contemporary carpetbaggers now clog the streets of Bozeman, threatening the lives of pedestrians as they careen around corners in their Hummers while yakking on their cells. Many have sold expensive homes on either coast and purchased new ones here for less, and now they are trying to remake the town to suit them. This influx of new people has created a need for increased services -- everything from law enforcement to waste treatment. Locals can expect to see their property taxes continue to soar as buildings are built and personnel added. It doesn't matter to them that their more modest properties are also going up in value. They didn't buy as an investment. This is their home. And no one asks them what they want.

Sadly, even if real estate prices drop in other parts of the country, Bozeman and other enclaves like it will probably be spared. The invisible fence that will protect Bozeman from all those nasty economic eventualities will essentially create a "gated" town. When building slows, the workers who lose their jobs will find it impossible to be part of the new Bozeman. Affordable housing will not be built to suit their needs, and low-rent apartments in my funky little neighborhood, where turnover is nearly nonexistent, may be the only option--one that is tenuous at best as the land is sold out from under us.

Sheila Velazquez lives and writes in Bozeman, Montana. She can be contacted at: velazque@ix.netcom.com.

Other Articles by Sheila Velazquez

* No Immigrants Need Apply
* “Please, Sir, I Want Some More”
* Drug Wars
* A Tale of Two Cities
* More BS From the BLS
* Bonds Are Us

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