Economic Change

John Baden writes about how life has changed in Montana:

From the Civil War until Earth Day, only approximate benchmarks, our
region had a coherent culture, economy, and politics. The glue holding
them together was commodity exploitation and conversion. The folks who
mattered in community life manipulated real stuff, cows and trees and
water and grain, not symbols and electrons. People dealt with the
furniture of the world and cheating was easily exposed. Folks were
interdependent, knew it, and acted accordingly. That’s what’s gone.

Now things really are different. Ever more people’s incomes are
independent of their locations. And ever more folks want to live in
places with Bozeman’s qualities. Consider growth in America. The
locational advantages of Cleveland, Baltimore, and Detroit are gone –
all have lost population. What’s booming? Bellingham, Boise, Bend, and
Billings all are growing rapidly.

It’s a nice piece on coping with change. The whole thing is here.

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True_Liberal

ben's last two sentences might get some backlash if applied to the Latino immigration issue. That also is "the product of thousands of individuals' informed decisions". We seem to disagree on whether it's a net plus or minus.

ben

"we are relocating millions of people west and south into areas with chronic water shortages"

Whether your mean big brother or "society" (whatever that means) this is the wrong way to look at this migration. The migration is the product of thousands of individuals' informed decisions. Treating the problem as a collective one simply makes a problem appear where none exists - or at least none that is serious enough to prevent these people moving there.

Ray G

I start thinking about Wyoming and Montana, Idaho I guess as well, every May, and don't stop thinking about them until at least November. I'm from Phoenix, and those summers are wearing me out, but of course, it was in the upper 60s today.

Talk about change (not to mention the need for water).

"Sissy Americans, . . . fleeing black people, . . . poaching water." Interesting. . .

True_Liberal

The Gulf cities of Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, etc. are totally dependent on water purification plants drawing salt water from the (ahem) Persian Gulf.

No reason the SoCal metroplex can't do the same, leaving the scarce inland water to inland residents.

save_the_rustbelt

"We" being our society, not big brother.

The Great Lakes states are already taking measures to protect the water from poachers, espcially since the average depth has been declining naturally. We are not going to have an environmental disaster so sissy Americans can avoid winter.

Mike

There are already serious proposals out there on how to sell the West and wouth some of the plentiful water from the Northeast. Surely if we can pipe oil from Alaska down here, it isn't inconceivable that Lake Michigan can be piped into the Southwest.

And who is this "we" that is relocating millions of people? Is this the 21st century version of the trail of tears? Is the government putting people in boxcars and dumping them into the desert?

There will be political range wars over water only as long as politicians want to fight turf wars. If people value living in warm, dry climates, let them pay for it.

Leviathan

Water rationing? Sounds like those ice-caps need to melt a little faster.

save_the_rustbelt

If you are going to flee from black people might as well do it good.

On a less sarcastic note, we are relocating millions of people west and south into areas with chronic water shortages - has anyone considered what will happen when Vegas has dirty air and water rationing?

Political "range wars" over water?