When I returned, just two weeks ago from the TED conference, my neighborhood had changed. I admit the annual time away always makes me see my world differently but this time my world was different. The house across the street from me, a similar three bedroom/tiny kitchen home from the mid ’80s, sold for more almost $950,000. To a second-home owner. It never went on the market. Back in ’05 when my friends who were leasing that house had $300,000 and wanted to buy it, the owner wouldn’t back off his price of $375,000 and they couldn’t make it work.
In my cul-de-sac I learned another home was going on the market, admittedly a newer home, but still, small square footage, modest construction and very little, um, curb appeal. My saddened neighbor told me this home was to be listed at $1.3 million. My neighbor, who has three young children and lived in her home for a decade, was sad because she knew at that price, another young family most likely wouldn’t move in. We already have multiple homes in our old neighborhood in Park Meadows, owned by out-of-state folks who visit rarely.
There are always talks I hear at TED so powerful in the moment and then later I struggle to remember them. But Theaster Gates’ talk started rumbling in my head. You should watch it on ted.com and it might inspire you to view your neighborhood differently. It made me re-think my town.
Admittedly, Theaster is an artist who lives on the west side of the south side of Chicago. He makes that distinction right away. And he has transformed his ‘hood, one building at a time, to become a cultural hub. He has seen culture become a catalyst for change.
I am not trying to say there is structural blight in Park City. But the fabric of families and vibrancy and art is being ripped rapidly before us. We are becoming neighborhoods, all over town, where fewer people live full-time The vibrancy of community is taking place in pockets in the Basin.
This breaks my heart. The town where kids and bikes and block parties and barbecues were the stuff of daylight and dusk is now slipping away. The conversations and problem solving and sharing of vegetables and babysitters and recipes for long-lasting friendships have no porches left to occupy.
As Theaster, a former potter, started to see success in crafting one building a gathering space and one black cinema space, another an archive of books and magazines, uptown Chicago folks started to take note and they asked him those soul-killing questions, “Is this scalable? Is this sustainable?” He only knew it was working. And at the end of his talk, when he was asked, “don’t you have folks ask that maybe monies would be better spent on basic services?” his reply was soul-stirring, “Beauty,” he said forcefully, “is a basic service.”
So I got to thinking how we might save neighborhoods in Park City to make them affordable for young families. Could a philanthropist start quietly buying homes, one at a time and creating some kind of land trust/rental pool /deed-restricted environment? Could the City do that? Ensure that we don’t become a two-dimensional town of old-timers hanging onto their homes and second-home owners visiting theirs.
Because that’s also who will govern us. When you need to be a resident of Park City to serve in Park City, we will soon be governed by old people or rich people or old rich people.
As the discussion evolves about grade alignment and new schools to be built I’m pretty certain of one thing… Don’t expect we will see any new elementary schools built inside the city limits because there will be no new students to attend them. The growth is all in the Basin — the county and they are overrun with issues they are ill-prepared to wrestle with so completely, so suddenly. They have inherited problems grandfathered into codes and developments so long ago. They are hamstrung in their ability to refuse to accept growth they would never approve today if they had those powers.
Thought leaders comment, this generation of baby boomers are afraid of growth. Hell no — we understand it, we planted the seeds for decades. Collectively, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars saying “the world is welcome here.” It is disingenuous to be surprised at our tremendous success. Vail doesn’t get the blame or credit for what happened this winter, we created the environment for success, without measurable snow. Right now, while we are fearing the thought of, once again, becoming a “company town,” as we started in our mining past, we must remember what followed — nearly being declared a ghost town. And with each home that changes hands to another person who won’t be living here full-time to become part of the fabric of community, we start to see filmy shapes float in windows of those unoccupied homes.
Regardless of our age or station we need to reclaim our town. We should have all shown up for the hearings where the tiny complex of bungalow-style homes were proposed by the old fire station on Park Ave. We should have insisted the City find a way to create the project where a small little group of retired folks and young families could live in the community and stay a vibrant part of our town. We should have fought for that.
We should have put all the players involved with the Kimball Art Center in one small room and said nobody leaves until you can agree to do what’s best for this community. Give up some height, City officials, modify the design, Kimball folks, and neighbors — carefully consider if you would rather have an Olive Garden there instead of a thing of beauty.
The small town you moved to, invested in, raised your children in, is fading away. Because we lost focus. We forgot beauty includes a community of all ages and incomes and accepts and welcomes new ideas and preserves spirit as well as brick. That kind of beauty needs to be a basic service to make us vibrant and multi-dimensional. I don’t know how to get there yet I just know I want us to try. Maybe I’ll ask my neighbors what they think this Sunday in the Park…
Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the director of the organization that provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.