An Old Town in Flux — Nothing Ever Stays the Same!

Ever since we closed the Gallery, we very rarely make it downtown. In a sense, we have become a reflection of something we often pondered while the store was open: "Where are all the LOCAL people hiding?"

Answer: Most of us simply don't go downtown!

Downtown is basically for visitors, and that's really OK, as long as the flow of visitors keeps going.

It's interesting how much "Town" has changed, in just four years... even if a couple of those were "the Covid Years."

I expect a good bit of it can be attributed to a substantial "generational change" in city government. A lot of the "gray hairs" that managed this town for better than 20 years have moved on. We now have a barely-40 Mayor, and three of six City Council members are in their 30's, instead of "past retirement age."

So what's so different?

Mostly it's a ramping up of gentrification and modernizing a small city that has been firmly rooted in its own past since the 1970's. Aside from the fact that most of our downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places, this place always maintained a myopic smugness over how nothing changes here... except, of course, it did in mostly invisible ways, in the form of skyrocketing cost of living and an aging population.

Now we start to see approvals for such things as construction of new hotels (much needed) and new eating and entertainment establishments that are not encumbered by impossible-to-comply-with laws prohibiting the removal of so much as one brick without virtually requiring a new law to be passed.

Of course, a lot of old-timers are not in alignment with such things.

The paradox in that is that the majority of city revenue comes from hospitality dollars and sales taxes on visitor shopping and dining... which is needed, but if you insist on making everything "local friendly ONLY" that needed tourist dollar dwindles and dies.

It was something we somewhat suffered under, while the gallery was open.

The old-timers lament "But this will CHANGE the town!"

Indeed, it will. And it's something that happens to virtually all fairly desirable places that draw lots of visitors for their "quaintness" and atmosphere. And it's all but impossible to strike that balance in which the local population is happy with their town, while the town also caters to visitors.

And so, there is an inevitable turnover, not just in the city government, but also in the population, itself.

To be perfectly morbid about it... a good number of aforementioned "old timers" are simply passing away, and those who are slightly younger are starting to move away, likely to Arizona, New Mexico or even Florida.

Heck, my wife and I are gradually feeling our own connection to this place slowly slip away, in part because the rapidly rising cost of living here is gradually eating away at our quality of life. It's not that we don't like the place anymore, we simply can't afford it anymore.

If we still had a brick-and-mortar shop, would we feel differently? Likely not. Today's visitor is more oriented towards spending their travel dollar on experiences rather than on "things," so $100 set aside for a piece of art in 2003 is today set aside for a whale-watching cruise.

Even so, it will be interesting to see how the town develops over the next five years or so... and whether the reputation as an "arts community" will slowly fade away and make way for something else.

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to leave a comment, if you feel so inclined!

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