OverlordBear
Well-known member
Pretty broad statement, don't you think?
Maybe....but until you live through it. After enough forced changes you realize that the nice “leave things the way they were Kalifornians” are the exception not the rule.
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Pretty broad statement, don't you think?
Hah. Now we can have two transplants to represent us!That exodus is also giving MT a second house seat.
Dale is right. CA isn’t the only state flocking to MT, we have immigrants from all over. Have had for quite some time.
The fun part is when immigrants complain about immigrants.
I’m laying in a bed in a $2 million house in Venice right now. It’s not a nice house and it was built in 1924. No wonder people are leaving.
there are homeless right outside sleeping on the sidewalks . If I were to move here, I’d be one of them. A search of Zillow shows 0 homes under 700k in this city.
Nice place though. good oysters.
A man ahead of the times, Parker Heinlein, a semi-retired Bozeman Chronicle journalist, relocated to Malta, Montana, to hunt and fish away from the SW Montana masses. Parker's oped piece is published each Thursday in the Chronicle and consistently expresses an interesting and entertaining perspective of hunting and fishing in the area to which he relatively recently "migrated".One of these days, like maybe tomorrow- we will hear of people cashing out in Bozeman and invading eastern MT. The HORROR!
Some great prospectives in this..I've encountered many more immigrants to CO from the Midwest, than from CA. Lots of Texans also. I've only kept track for 50 years, though. CO Springs has the 3rd highest population of veterans of any US city, and is much smaller than the 2 cities w larger Vet populations. Vets who served here, are drawn to retire or live/work after discharge here.
There are all kinds of reasons why people immigrate. We have a huge population. As it grows exponentially, people go where they can have a better life by making more $, Okies to CA during the Dust Bowl. The financial/gov't brain trust of your town recruits and welcomes immigrant people and business. These Chamber of Commerce boosters have one catchphrase: Growth. Turns out that growth is a Ponzi scheme benefitting the developer, the banker, the politician. Read John Nichols' Milagro Beanfield War, or even better, The Magic Journey. Read it w an indigenous person, to whom you and your ilk are immigrants uprooting the wonderful place this used to be. When that land of milk and honey gets too full, the ones who can afford to, leave for a better place. Once they have their nest egg, they can move for quality of life. So if you live somewhere w an attractive quality of life because it is small and outdoorsy, there is an immigration target on you. Jackson & Cody WY, Montrose & Durango CO, Flagstaff AZ, Reno NV, Bend OR, Taos &, Santa Fe NM, Spokane WA. Now ID and MT, it is your turn, and it comes as no surprise. Figure out where this wave is going next, get there early. Enjoy the financial success roundly available as the new place catches on and takes off. Then it is time to start looking for the next last great place. Abbey wrote, Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. Word to your Chambers of Commerce.
Pumping the brakes on growth in favor of preserving quality of life and the natural world is not on the platform of any Republican committee, state or national. Many Democrats aren't fully invested in having growth pay for its impacts, either. When the West was an infinite garden of Eden, so underutilized by indigenous tribes that they didn't deserve to keep it, unencumbered growth was the tool and mindset Americans embraced. Early on there were signs the great infinite, wasn't. Read Stegner's Beyond the 100th Meridian, about the inconvenient drought realities of the West. Climate Deniers abounded, even then. They broadly promised rain would follow the plow, meaning a magical weather phenomenon would increase rain as soon as the native prairie grass was cut by the plow. Government homesteading programs guaranteed it.
We know you are from California. Sometimes the "boost" from out of state money isn't that. It sucks when property values skyrocket and local kids that want to buy property and raise a family where they are from isn't possible for them. The best "California" money I guess is kids that leave, then come back able to afford it. But, they lose decades of living here. No shame in being proud of where you are from. I'm a Montanan and I don't much care when I offend transplants. mtmuleyStill haven't seen a "California money not welcome" sign..
It's funny how we like the outsiders to visit and spend their money, but not to stay and influence our lifestyle. No disrespect meant to our neighbors to the north, but my dad, active in the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce as a businessman, welcomed the Canadians who came to Great Falls for the shopping and entertainment back in the day ... but was known to say, "They're like hemorrhoids ... when they come down and then go back up, they're okay ... but when they come down and stay down ... they're a real pain in the butt!"Hell we had a Governor in Oregon back in the 70s that pleaded with Californians to visit but don’t stay.
The political posturing here is pretty funny. Fringe elements of the right wing have moved into rural locations in an effort to build their "redoubt," a place that they can fall back too and declare sovereign apart from the US. They've been running in races for school board up to congress. MT, ID both have some whacko's who moved here from elsewhere to tell us how to live. WY too.
When I started working in Gov't Relations, there were distinct differences between the parties, but everyone was genial and willing to work together for the betterment of the state, and the people who live there (certain exceptions apply, obviously). Now, it's tribal beyond belief. The bulk leadership of the MT GOP is largely from out of state extremists who make the party platform a litmus test. Transfer of public land was the job of the former VP of the party, in fact.
Matt Shea in Washington is calling for open warfare against the U.S.and to install a Christian Caliphate. He has friends in the Idaho Legislature as well. Wyoming's legislature went hard right as well, and now they have groups that are well funded and try to take out anyone who abandons a fringe interpretation of the 2nd amendment, or who don't tout a hard line evangelical note.
Yeah, some of the liberal transplants are just as whacky, but when it comes to sending people to legislatures, to county commissions & to school boards, give me moderates of both parties who are willing to share ideas and work together. That's the real part of the west that we've lost that I miss.