Loving, Living In, And Leaving A Tourist Town
The following is the culmination of several months of notes and observations about life on the south part of Whidbey Island, a place now known more for being a tourist town. They are my personal observations and not affiliated with any organization. I am just a guy who liked a place so much he decided to live there, then realized he had to leave.
(Posted one month after getting the keys to my new old big tiny house on the outskirts of Port Townsend.)
Alas, some will lament that there is nothing illegal to expose.
It is almost as if that breaks a rule of writing.
But, there is suspense, drama, and a description of need.
There are realities of policies and procedures to expose.
Who is a tourist town (but really the entire area) for, and how should it be run?
There may not even be a need to change any laws, just strategically enforce the ones that exist for the full-time residents.
Loving A Tourist Town
Tourism
It’s a tourist town! Want more reasons than that to live there? There are plenty to pick from. I’ve lived in two. If you need to see why it is so sweet, check with their Tourism Board, the Chamber of Commerce, every advertiser, and all the social media influencers who either live there or visit long enough for a viral post or video.
There are more reasons that aren’t as publicized. Everyone who moved in when it was quaint or were the ones who made it appealing are a self-reinforcing community of “people who are happy to be here!” Their efforts were quiet at the start, uplifting, and enabling of the rest – unintentionally and intentionally.
Here are a few examples of how I’ve liked one place, Whidbey Island.
- Numerous posts about Whidbey on this blog: https://trimbathcreative.net/?s=whidbey
- My ten-year photo essay of the island’s natural shoreline
- – as books: https://www.blurb.com/user/tetrimbath
- – as individual photos: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/tom-trimbath/shop
- And there were the times with the Land Trust, the dancers, the writers, et al. And the game I designed but never distributed. (Couldn’t find an easy way to include the dice.)
But this introductory section isn’t here for that. That’s why there are many more words following.
Living In A Tourist Town
Not Disney
Heard in ‘downtown’ as a group of four stylish young-ish visitors were walking down the sidewalk. “Do you realize people actually live here?” As if the town was built just for them.
Heard as a family exited a thrift store. “Well, it’s 10:30 in the morning. What else is there to do here?” They looked perplexed, as if there should be daily parades and shows. Where’s the entertainment? Head to Disney. There will be constant entertainment, costumed mascots, and plenty of parking! Something must appeal because tourist towns exist because of tourists.
The locals know to avoid the touristy areas, maybe even shop at a mini-strip mall on the outskirts to actually get something useful. Such shopping doesn’t fit the image, it is downright scandalous to some because people are in-and-out shopping for necessities, not just browsing for luxuries or trinkets with a latte in hand.
The more likely there are tourists, the more likely the parking is limited. Two-hour limit. Loading zone only. Come shop, but don’t come to work unless you can do it in two-hour chunks, or you can get here before the tourists, or you’re lucky enough to live along a bus route and your workday ends before the buses stop running. Yes, you’re a local, but don’t stay here long. But, if it isn’t tourist season, please shop local to keep the local shops in business. Please sustain us despite the loyalty you developed to year-round businesses outside the tourist core.
A tourist town is a business town. It is not a town dedicated to the people who live there. When a great majority of a town is employed by folks who have to commute to it, the town isn’t for the people who work there. That sounds and feels like working locals are subservient to people who live elsewhere.
The locals are, however, asked to fund improvements to the look and feel of the place, and maybe to its operations. Is it more important that the infrastructure looks good or that it operates well? Given the choice of nicer sidewalks or more reliable power, which will be funded? Shall we pave the rutted alleys that run through some of the neighborhoods, or should we have prettier storm catchment basins?
What is the charter and purpose of the municipality? State it. Govern to it. Don’t hide it, whatever you choose.
Grandkids And Yachties
The boats are back! So are the grandkids! Whether it is summer or a holiday, doors and docks, pools and playgrounds are opened as the kids and their parents’ boats are back. For a few months the amenities are at full operations – before being stowed away again in a few months.
Don’t have kids or a yacht? Spend months being reminded that you are not worthy. Restrooms are closed. Docks may be pulled up. Gates locked. Go ahead, maneuver around them as you creatively recreate. You get a lot less to work with. It’s not as if an island’s shores and lakes and playgrounds are moved off-island. They’re still here. But you’re only allowed to use them if the kids are around or if it is boating season.
Pools may be closed, but the ocean is open and the lakes are too. But showers are shuttered just when warm water may be more than just appreciated. A healthy swim in the winter can be in water that’s warmer than the air, but be prepared to bundle up as you get out of the water. Hypothermia awaits until you can finally change into dry clothes, take a shower, or both.
If you are a year-round resident be prepared to fantasize that for a few months those doors will be open, that services you are paying for will again be made available because the visitors re-arrive. In the meantime, make sure you go to your bathroom before you leave the house. The public facilities are likely to be unavailable.
Not everyone needs warm air and blue skies. There are people who don’t run away because the skies are grey and they might need a sweater. They don’t think of themselves as more rugged, because this is just the way things are. As the saying goes, the issue isn’t about whether the weather is bad; it has more to do with the clothing you wear, even if that is for underwater or while hanging from a kite.
Does it really cost that much more to provide year-round service for year-round residents? If the services are for people who are only here for part of the year, who is funding their fun? Evidently, locals are a magnanimous lot, paying for services year-round, but only getting to enjoy them when they must share them – if the lines aren’t too long.
Can full-time residents get full-time benefits, or are the benefits only available when visitors arrive? Maybe the trick is to live somewhere else, then come back with the crowds.
Vacant Houses
What? The power is out? Well, that’s why it is nice to have friends, wine, books, a fire, lots of blankets, candles – and maybe a generator if you are modern enough to need your electronics.
Ah, but listen. Walk through the neighborhood and hear the automatic generators kick in to automatically generate power to furnaces, water heaters, and appliances in empty houses. Cheers and applause to those who rely on quiet house batteries. But, after living in a neighborhood for a while, it becomes obvious which houses haven’t had an occupant for months, years, or decades. There’s nothing illegal about making that much noise, especially for vital services. Besides, if the owners aren’t there, the noise won’t bother them; it will only bother their neighbors.
During power outages during the off-season (from the perspective of the tourism economy), be surrounded by the noise of spare power being generated for the idle hardware, including security systems that are primed to make even more noise if they get confused and think there’s a reason to sound an alarm. Dark and cold occupied households can be mere feet away from a bit more comfort that only requires an electrical cord. Applause for some folks that share their excess simply by at least adding an extension cord that they run to their property line in case someone needs to charge a device’s battery.
An outage is an emergency, but it can also be an opportunity to remember what quiet sounds like. Introspection is valuable. People pay for quiet retreats. An opportunity to slow down that much more in contrast to our powered frantic modern pace. But have no fear. Crank up the noise and any house can be like a little piece of Bellevue or Bothell, protected pockets of abandoned suburbia amidst rural countryside.
What benefit could an owner of a vacant house provide if they fed their excess power back into a local grid, or even just share an extension cord? What other incentives can be offered to those who don’t make news? What disincentives can be imposed on those who make noise, even when there’s no one to benefit from that wasted power?
Unpaid Concierges And Custodians
Neighbors make a community. It is hard to be a community of one. My neighbor is going on a trip; sure, I’ll take care of the cats and the mail. And if the power goes out, I’ll reset the thermostat. I’ll do that because they’ll do that for me. Small towns make that easier. Cities enforce anonymity. Some people are altruistic enough to help anyone, anywhere, anytime. Saintly behaviour exists.
Oops. Looks like your water pipe busted after that cold snap. Time to knock on your door. Thanks for helping steady the ladder as I worked on my roof. That looks too heavy. Would you like some help? Good neighbors create a habit of help that becomes natural and innocuous to the point that people truly mean it when they say, “Don’t mention it.”
One famous incident was the response to a tragedy. A windstorm meant more than a trip to the hospital for a family driving home from an event. The details will be spared out of respect for those who survived. The story to emphasize is the community’s response. By the time some of them got home that night, the community had already built a support network. Food, childcare, and maybe even a crowdfunding campaign. The community did that. The family didn’t have to. The government didn’t have to. People helping people without needing paperwork or credentials.
People who own multiple houses may act that way, but they can’t keep track of every neighborhood they visit. They also can’t keep track of every one of their houses all the time. They may rely on the full-time neighbors to tell them something isn’t working right or something needs to be fixed. Septic alarms can go off in empty houses. A tree branch can puncture a roof in ways that no automatic security system is going to notice. It would be more than rude for a neighbor not to mention it – if they have contact information.
As a neighbor, make that call. During a disaster, turning off the water, or the propane, or the electricity can be a safety issue for the neighborhood. Who has a key and the security code? But don’t be surprised if an absent homeowner asks you to do something about it for free. Trivial things? Sure. Septic systems can have mute buttons for alarms, but those are temporary. Propane may be accessible outside, but anyone helping makes themselves open to liability if something else goes wrong. The same with electricity. One absentee neighbor asked a full-time resident to break in, find the electrical panel, and turn off the power – and was surprised when they wouldn’t trip the security system or break the law to do it.
Small-town people can be polite. Visitors witnessing neighbors helping neighbors sometimes assume they are going to get the same treatment despite never reciprocating. Maybe they’re practiced at having a concierge when they travel. Custodians come with the property, don’t they?
As tourist towns increase their percentage of vacant houses, a greater burden is placed on fewer full-time residents. Expecting vacant owners to voluntarily hire property managers may require more than good graces. Actually, mandating that someone responsible must constructively respond as rapidly as necessary seems reasonable, requiring living up to being able to respond. One unattended house puts the rest of the neighborhood at risk. In an off-season disaster, as many as a third of the houses may be vacant. In some neighborhoods, that can be greater. The risk to everyone grows.
Homeowners will need to respond to their home. Who responds if they are not there? Where’s the sign outside with contact information? What are the penalties for putting the rest of the neighborhood at risk? If the residents are going to become concierges and custodians, who compensates them?
Permitting Homes Instead Of Houses
If people can’t afford homes, we should permit affordable housing.
Sounds simple. Here begins many more words. There are policies for this and that. Programs for aiding this populace or that area. And yet, gaps exist. It sounds intractable and is definitely pervasive. Yet, there I sat, my home bracketed by new houses. They are affordable to some because otherwise, they wouldn’t be getting built. But they are not affordable to the people who need a house, any house, a shelter, a place they can afford on a typical income. Talk to local workers and find that they frequently have solutions, but they are literally not permitted to build them. They are not permitted to build what they consider affordable housing.
Where to start? I could describe my amateur understanding of the policies and procedures that are being debated. There are others who are better at politics and referendums. I’ll leave those discussions to them.
(Disclosure: I’ve written professionally about real estate and have also been a realtor. Currently, I am a homeowner and a writer.)
How about starting at a more personal level? Talk, no, listen to people who can’t afford housing. Most of the ones I know have solutions. They’re not whining about what to do. They frequently have answers that would work for them. Those answers aren’t panaceas, but case-by-case, people being able to live the way they want to makes the size of the problem necessarily shrink.
People who are struggling to find housing are frugal by necessity, yet they meet hurdles. Their solutions can be physically enacted. Sometimes those solutions become stylish by people who are frugal by choice, by fashion. They are more likely to have the resources to employ the people who will enable their applications and variances and their permits. Vacation houses become easier to permit than someone’s frugal home.
Tiny houses, cobb houses, strawbale, single-wides, houseboats, trailers, mixed-use buildings like barns. People in need don’t discuss such things as abstractions. Such alternatives meet their needs. One person might be fine with a converted barn. Someone else might be fine with a trailer. Their solution may be a temporary first step, but that may not be permitted. Innovative and frequently very old-style materials and construction techniques can even be more environmentally sound.
But, there’s that need for a permit.
The very nice houses being built are permitted. They are conventional, may require variances, and employ lots of contractors. Great. That drives an industry and an economy.
Unconventional houses may not drive an industry, but they may house that soon-to-be homeowner.
How many conventional houses were permitted in the area this year? Insert your municipality here. How many people need affordable housing? How many of their solutions were permitted? Which permits were given the higher priority?
Tourist towns can be proud of a quaint rural character. Rural character shows up in missions and goals, marketing materials, general descriptions of what the locals want the place to be. Rural character can be fashionable. The odd part is that permitting a modern farmhouse-style house may entail hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of square feet.
Traditional farmhouses had humbler beginnings. Imagine a farmer homesteading (and all the history that goes with that). They had land. No house. No crops. Possibly no income. What did they did first? Look back in history. They may have started in a tent, or a log house, or a sod house. Houses were small because large houses were expensive in money and time. They needed something to live in while devoting time to farming, or working livestock, or felling trees for lumber. That first house might have been temporary. It was probably small. Farmhouses did eventually grow, but that would take years, if at all.
Modernity provides options. Manufactured homes simplify the choices. But permitting them, especially the more affordable single-wides, is difficult – or may be banned. Container houses and tiny houses have their own shows, but building something small may violate building codes – that are there to preserve rural character. We pride our country on innovation, but we don’t readily permit it.
I liked my house, the only place I’ve emotionally called home. I can barely afford it and frequently have almost sold it. It is more beach cottage (though more than a quarter mile from the water) than farmhouse. It was built in 1964, was probably smaller, and expanded to its current size at still under a thousand square feet. It was all the original owners needed. Why build bigger? (Update: I sold it to move into a tiny house in a neighboring community.)
It couldn’t be built now. A correction. That home could be built now because the laws of physics have not changed. However, years ago, one member of the homeowners association (something else that wasn’t part of rural character) said my house was in violation of the bylaws because it is less than a thousand square feet. My house predates those rules. Many of the older houses in the area are this small or smaller. I was not going to artificially grow my house. Such money needs to go to more practical uses.
I’ve stayed in a 128-square-foot tiny house. I could see how it could work for me. The sub-micro-mini tinies are like 96 square feet. I prefer my friend’s tiny house, which is about 220 square feet. That plus a storage building, maybe a container, and enough land for a yard and garden, and I’d be in luxury compared to much of the world. I might also be out of debt. Unfortunately, if I sold this house and bought some land with the proceeds, I probably wouldn’t be permitted to live on the land while building an affordable house. (Update: I am now debt-free because I sold my house and moved into a tiny house.)
It is even tougher for many people I know.
But what about appearances? The conversation can leap to negative images of bad trailer parks, hobo communities, RVs, and a trashy lifestyle. Who wants that? I doubt anyone wants a trashy lifestyle, but someone who is paying so much for rent that they can’t afford healthy food, or someone who can’t afford any food, or someone who is illegally hiding in the forest has more basic needs. Function is more important than style.
Is rural character, or fashion, or style more important than housing those who are struggling? Can we enable someone who has a solution in mind but that they are not permitted to employ?
I mentioned that there are no panaceas. Water and sanitation are health issues to provide and protect. Power is less likely to require tying into the grid thanks to solar, wind, and LEDs. But people usually live near people, and that means sharing water sources and safely handling waste. Of course, there are options like water catchment, grey water systems, and even delivered water. As for sewage, septic is common, but can be required to exceed a minimum house size measured in more bedrooms than they need. Humanure systems exist (and I’ve seen them being hidden because they probably couldn’t get a permit.) Incinerating toilets are novel. I don’t want one, but if it works for someone else, it is not my job to say they can’t use it. (For me, I cringe at the irrational image of something that could put a fire up my butt.)
Of course, I’m only one person with some opinions.
The people who need a house have other answers. Go out and ask them on a dark and stormy night. Bring a flashlight and boots. Wear a hat and maybe a rain jacket. Expect them to be suspicious of your intent. Better yet, talk, no, listen to them some where and some time they feel safe and don’t have to skip work.
If housing is unaffordable, use less materials by reducing the size. If conventional construction of tinier houses has too few available contractors, make it easier for owner-built houses, maybe use alternative materials. If land is too expensive, allow smaller lots, or let people live on the water. By the numbers it is easier to be driven to physically feasible options – that aren’t permitted.
The bulk of the mainstream housing market works for the mainstream. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Outside the mainstream, people are diminishing their dreams to fit their reality. Frequently, that becomes a dream of a small house on a lot big enough for a garden. Simple. Almost farm-like. But, they couldn’t get permits for that single-wide, or that container house, or that houseboat, or, or, or…
In the meantime, many of the houses being built in a tourist area are second, third, fourth houses. They aren’t homes. Some are more like hotel rooms, waiting months or years for their owner-guests to visit for a while. They aren’t breaking laws by doing so. They are enjoying the fruits of their wealth, and they are permitted to do so. About a decade ago, the south end of Whidbey Island, where I lived, was about 27% vacant, according to the US Census. The last time they reported, that had risen to 38%. That’s a lot of permitted houses that are affordable to their owners, but evidently not affordable to those who need housing most. How many frugal houses do we need?
From the financial perspective of people who can’t afford housing, that’s a lot of unaffordable housing being permitted.
What are we really permitting?
Existing housing doesn’t have to change. The mainstream doesn’t have to change. The industry doesn’t have to change. But, there is a housing crisis. Evidently, something has to change. We could permit truly affordable housing.
What kind of housing are we really permitting? What are the area’s real priorities?
Bidding For Contractors
And the bidding begins at… That’s what you’re supposed to hear at an auction. What priceless trinket is on the block for a bunch of bucks? A signed first edition of 2001? An antique handmade quilt? A chimney?
When times are tough, contractors might work on anything. They might also work anywhere and may have to move to make that happen. When a region has lost contractors because so many moved or retired, and then the market recovers, it becomes a contractors’ market. They’re running a business. Charge what the market will bear.
Charge what the market will bear, and know that there are limits to how much a human can do. If there’s more work than time, then pick the priciest jobs and make those boat payments. It is the American Way.
It becomes more lucrative to help build the biggest houses, the nicest houses, the houses owned by people who can afford to bid up the price.
It becomes easier for less-wealthy homeowners to hear, “Sure, I can fix that, but I have to be able to make $x to do it.” In old houses in particular, a chimney that needs tucking and pointing for loose gravel won’t get worked on unless a contractor can make a few thousand rebuilding, not repairing, and swapping out the fireplace for a new woodstove. A window needs to be fixed? Only if they’re all replaced. A roof patched? Only if the entire roof is reroofed.
Homeowners can find themselves in structures that are deteriorating around them that are requiring the skills of licensed, bonded, insured professionals. Meanwhile, new houses can be built and left empty for the few times the owner needs a very large hotel room. A homeowner can find themselves having to move out of a house that contractors can’t spend the time fixing, which is then bought by someone who can afford the house price and the contractor’s rates – and again, may leave it empty. In the meantime, another full-time resident becomes somewhere else’s full-time resident.
Historically, home repairs were do-it-yourself. That remains one of our work ethics to be proud of, but insurance and regulations now mean a homeowner needs to find the time to hunt for a contractor, and failing that, learn how to apply for permits, and become skilled enough to do the work that will satisfy an inspector. It becomes easier to wait until a critical failure, which then sparks action, frequently at higher costs. Maintain is cheapest, then comes repair, then comes replace, and somewhere along the line it makes sense to respect a life and not subordinate it to a building.
Ideally, contractors play by the rules and laws, and also respect the needs of their businesses. But, what are they licensed to do? Government issues the regulations and permits. Government issues the licenses. Realistically, requiring contractors to not discriminate on wealth would create a nationwide news outcry. Realistically, doing nothing makes it harder to afford to live.
Parade Of The Pleasant Peasantry
Smile! Keep smiling. Put on that Disney face. There’s actually a good reason to do that. Small towns can be more pleasant. The lack of anonymity means residents are more likely to know the other residents. Anonymous honking fails fast when later you’re both in the same line at the grocery store. There’s a natural incentive to be nice to the other members of your community. Life isn’t a utopia, but compared to some suburbs, friends are easier to find and keep.
But what about that Disney face? Well-meaning visiting customers can say amazingly insensitive things. But don’t say anything back except thank you. Visitors can launch insults at barely no social cost because they’re quickly gone. Workers have always had to deal with class structure, but in a tourist town, rude people may be your greatest source of income from tips or sales. Absentee owners can come in, feeling beneficient, and have no clue about how people are coping to live in a town that is beyond their means.
A barista was stylish enough to get a compliment from some customers because she had a nice scarf. Obviously, she is doing okay, right? The barista said, “Thank you,” of course. It was a custom-designed scarf donated to a local thrift shop. Evidently, the barista was lucky because someone just got tired of the wearable art that was worth hundreds of dollars. The barista got a deal. All she needed was a scarf. As the customers left, the barista turned and said, “I wonder what they’d think if they knew I hang this on a tree branch in the woods when I get off work. It’s not like I have a house or anything.”
Some more philanthropic folks were concerned about housing. In public (same coffeeshop), they proclaimed that it only made sense to build houses with more than 1,500 square feet because “obviously no one would consider living in anything smaller.” They scoffed when a local customer pointed out that: 1) a homeless person appreciates a roof, walls, windows, a door, heat, etc. regardless of size because they understand the difference between necessities and luxuries, and 2) tiny houses, houses as small as 128 square feet appeal to people regardless of wealth because big houses can be wastes of materials, space, energy, and maintenance.
But there are public debates. Unfortunately, full-time workers working to a fixed schedule can’t decide to arbitrarily take an hour or two for an event, or to volunteer. Folks without much can seem to be unengaged because they’re not donating money, goods, or time. Feelings get hurt because the event or whatever sounds good or fun or noble, yet gets turned down by a busy, overwhelmed local. That recipient may not be able to store or use whatever was offered. They may not have the time to spare. If it was only a matter of feelings, that may not be so bad, but the recipient may feel forced to smile because the people to please are in control of jobs, sales, and tips. The lesson: Learn to smile. Don’t be real.
Working locals can find that their culture bifurcates into the parade of pleasant peasantry for one crowd and a life based on reality when not in public. Hide that grumble until after work. Ignore the insensitive dismissive comments from folks who’ve never experienced want. Be glad to have a release with friends afterwards, and don’t be surprised if they have to be contacted by phone or Facebook because they can no longer live here.
None of this is illegal. Some is driven by nobility and philanthropy. But to live in a tourist town requires cultural and psychological shifts that aren’t good for the mental health of the local community. There may be no answer for this one, except to wait for a dramatic shift in economic systems that alleviate income and wealth inequalities. Of course, change has to start somewhere. Why not in a tourist town?
Utilities Are Necessities
Ferries are romantic. They’re a great draw to an island or a remote peninsula. Most tourist towns have some geographical feature that sets them apart from the rest of the world. Islands can have ferries. Other towns have bridges. Mountain towns have scenic winding roads, that also experience the adventure of storms and slides and floods that can close roads. The impediments do not create the attraction; they are usually the necessary gateways. A ski area with a washed-out bridge is collecting snow but without skiers. A bridge being out means no traffic in or out. An island without a ferry needs either lots of boats, an airport, or a lot of stored supplies.
The good news for ferries is that they can be a great ride. They cross the moat that keeps the mainland available, but also limits its influence.
The bad news for ocean ferries is corrosive saltwater, waves that challenge larger ships, a need for proper ports, marine traffic, marine life, and the long list of issues sailors have dealt with for thousands of years.
Mainland resort towns are limited by the number of roads that lead to them. Ferry routes are limited by the number of ferries available to run those routes. Ghost towns are created when access is denied through disaster or neglect. Damaged roads and bridges are easier to see, point at, witness. A lack of ferries simply means water without a boat on it. The damage is docked in a shipyard, waiting to be resolved. A ghost town can be created, and ignored because no one can get to it to recognize it and its need.
Ideals for better transportation systems are wonderful. They’re ideal. In the meantime, locals see what’s real. Self-imposed limitations. Reduced business. A need for commuters to consider moving close to The Big City. Residents with medical needs need to move to more reliable options. Individual households leave individually. There’s rarely an exodus, a parade of refugees. A continual drain is not a dramatic news item. Ghost towns happen one home, one business at a time. Even if that ideal infrastructure is resurrected, the people who left can need a great incentive to return; and if they return, they return to a place that wasn’t the one they left.
It is fun to dream of a better transportation system not powered by politics, maybe a private sector solution, but one with enough capacity to maintain a population is impractical or is effectively privatizing the place. We wait, but many will leave, and those who remain may envy those who had a Mosquito Fleet or autonomous aerial taxis.
Creatives Exit
Congratulations to tourist towns for getting acknowledged as Creative Districts. It can also be a sign that it is time for the artists to leave. Artists move to a town that isn’t known for art, the town gets known for its art, the town gets popular enough that people want to move there, demand for housing exceeds the supply, the artists get priced out of the town, the town keeps its Creative District status, and the artists have moved somewhere affordable enough for an artist to make art. The image remains. The galleries may, too. The most successful artists can afford to stay, but we haven’t developed immortality, so like all humans, their stay is temporary.
Art is rarely profitable. Artists have the balancing act of living somewhere affordable while also remaining close to their customers/patrons. Artists are drawn to the edges by necessity. Edgy urban neighborhoods full of empty lofts, temporarily. Rural towns with just enough services to avoid the freneticism of suburban life while not being so far out as to spend all of their time sustaining a subsistence lifestyle.
Art also attracts artists. If one artist finds a solution, others benefit from their choices by moving and living within that new choice.
The economics of art also necessitate hard choices. Decisions to move are necessities, not casual luxuries. But, their decisions are quiet. As they decide to move, the focus becomes who is going to take their place. An old house sold for how much over list? Great! Congratulations! But they may have sold because they had to, not because they wanted to. Schedule in a multi-month interruption to their production schedule, and hence their income, which makes them poorer. They may receive the compensation if they owned the house, but if they were renters, well, wish them luck, good luck.
Artists are moving. It is not a hypothetical thing. They’re moving from where art developed a reputation to places that have reputations for fires, floods, or fights.
Imagine, a Creative District that supported the creatives as much as it supported the district.
Leaving A Tourist Town
Towns and cultures change slowly. Every day seems similar to the previous one, but the realities can’t be ignored over the course of years. A place can go from wilderness, to tribes, to explorers, to fisherfolk and lumberjacks, followed by farmers, a cheap place for artists to work, to bedroom community, to picturesque tourist town.
Each era existed for years, and lingers to some extent. Enough of each era remains to make it easy to say that nothing changes, but it did and does.
But each era fades as the next arises. Individuals move, or die. There may never be a reason to complain, but there may be reasons to move and not stay. After a while, it can be harder to find an artist, a commuter, a farmer, a fishing boat, or a tree wrangler. More houses are empty. Fewer houses are homes.
Those who leave sometimes return, at least for a visit. During economic hard times, how many contractors re-established their businesses, and now have no incentive to return? Some leave alone. A few move to ad-hoc communities within other communities. Selective amnesia makes it easier to look back at a warm culture, great neighbors, incredible nature, and all the rest that the tourism brochures offer. The amnesia part may dwell less on why they left, but those stories aren’t as grand.
As a place goes from 1-in-4 houses vacant, to 1-in-3, to 1-in-2, to… At what point does a community’s viability and sustainability become academic?
Or.
Decide that being a tourist town is an honor and an achievement, but that it is equally honorable and celebratory to support the people who built the place and the culture that makes it more than just another place on the map.
Good luck finding that balance, if balance is even desired. I’m selling my house and moving.
A Personal Experience
Soon after I moved to Whidbey Island, I was getting my hair cut. In true small-town fashion the barber was also the mayor. He asked the innocuous question, “So, how are you doing?” I pointed out that I was fine, but that I just moved from being in the downtown part of the tourist town to just outside it. He was disappointed because I just moved out of ‘his’ town. I said I moved because of the grown-up version of high school cliques and the gossipy fish bowl. He started apologizing and described how, as mayor, he saw one of his roles was to manage the culture, not just the finances. I stopped him. Yes. I moved, but just enough to get a bit more privacy. People were making up stories about me (possibly because I was in my 40s, single and retired), but they made up stories because they cared about me. If I didn’t tell them what was happening, they made something up, not for entertainment (well, maybe a little) but because they wanted me to be included and cared for. To some, that would be intrusive; but, I’d just spent over two decades in big city suburbia where neighbors rarely knew each other. It was a world of dull anonymity amongst an overwhelming supply of services and distractions. In his town, the stores actually closed. None were 24-hour except some service stations. Gossipy, authentic community versus overwhelming distractions? I’ll take authentic community over 24/7 service. Businesses closed aren’t open every day because some people understood life/work balance before they had a name for it. Balance, thank you.
Balance isn’t easy. I don’t think it is ever achieved; it is simply an impossible thing to strive for. It is hard for an individual. It is harder for a community. With this little bit of citizen literature, I hope I have at least collected several overlapping consequences that I hope also have overlapping and reinforcing solutions.
In the meantime, as I mentioned above, I sold my small cottage with a view and bought a tiny house and am debt-free though view-free. From so much debt that I needed a good and healthy job just to stay in place, to being debt-free and getting naturally healthier. The irony: My new address is also in a tourist town, though in the rural unincorporated part. And I’m hearing the same worries, concerns, and laments – as some of my neighbors are moving to more affordable regions.
Trimbathcreative's Blog (Tom Trimbath) 