Imagine you’re a retired couple, living in a suburban wasteland on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. A controversial viral infection has killed a couple of your friends. The City of Houston has been reporting more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases per day, and the Mayor has ordered police to begin issuing $250 fines to people who refuse to wear face masks.
You can’t attend the Astros games. The best you can do is make a $100 tax-deductable donation, and get a cardboard cutout of yourself placed in the stands.
That is to say, you can pay $100 to not attend the games.
With all this going on, life in a small town… maybe in southern Colorado… might start to look really attractive.
Even if there is nothing much going on there, in terms of culture. No festivals, no sporting events, no live theatre, no interesting lectures, no concerts, one “temporarily closed” movie theater. And not only during the pandemic; this is, like, the normal situation here. Yes, we have an active Pagosa Springs Pickleball Club. But really, not much else going on. Even the political controversies are… small town.
And how about those tax rates! Colorado has some of the country’s lowest overall tax rates in the nation. Particularly ‘friendly’ is the overall income tax rate for wealthy folks, who pay only 4.8% (compared to, say 6.8% in Nebraska and 5.7% in Kansas) and who pay low residential property tax rates, about $600 per $100,000 in assessed home value (compared to, say, $2,000 per $100K in Texas and $1,900 per $100K in Nebraska.).
Granted, there’s no state income tax at all in Texas, but the average sales tax there is a bit higher than in Pagosa Springs.All in all, considering there’s nothing much to spend your money on here, a wealthier person can live pretty darn comfortably on $100,000 a year. And if all you’re going to do is staying at home, anyway… well, what better place to do nothing?
There’s one small problem in Pagosa Springs, however, for those who are ‘sheltering at home’. Well… two small problems, really. Phone service, and Internet service. Both are hit-and-miss in most of Archuleta County. Both the Town and County governments have been throwing a little money at the ‘broadband’ problem — $100K per year, perhaps — and there are actually areas in town where you can get higher speeds and relative reliability. But let’s be honest… this is not Houston.
Repeat. This is not Houston. Thanks heavens!
And it’s not Idaho Falls… a city of just over 60,000 people in beautiful southwestern Idaho, about two hours from Yellowstone National Park and close to several popular ski areas. Even in the middle of a global pandemic, Idaho Falls has been able to maintain a vibrant local economy, thanks in part to the generous employment provided by the nation’s leading nuclear research facility, the Idaho National Laboratory.
From an article by reporter Alan Greenblatt in Governing Magazine, August 19, 2020:
Idaho Falls also boasts several food processors and Melaleuca, an online wellness shopping club that attracts a million shoppers per month.
“We’re so diverse that it’s crazy,” brags Chip Schwarze, president of the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce.
Idaho Falls is now having to contend with the problems of growth. The national lab is working on a big project involving advanced small modular reactors — mini nuclear power plants — that will bring in 1,200 to 1,500 workers for the next three to five years. Given the housing crunch – and the increasing local costs of construction and labor – it’s not clear how easily they’ll find room…
According to Mr. Greenblatt’s article, Californians have been “lining up at the visitors center, asking where they can go to buy a house.” Home prices are cheap, compared to prices in most urban areas of California, but the supply is… limited?
The city’s vacancy rate for rentals is actually negative; people are signing leases on units that haven’t been built yet.
“Obviously, our real estate market is incredible,” says Renee Spurgeon, president of the Greater Idaho Falls Association of Realtors.
Obviously. When you have people from California bidding up the prices, on a limited supply of homes — offering more than the asking price — it can feel like real estate heaven. If you’re a seller… or a real estate agent…
Not such a happy situation, however, for some folks who have lived in Idaho Falls for the past couple of generations, and who may not have jobs at the Idaho National Laboratory.
There was a time, not so many years ago, when a working family who got priced out of a community like Idaho Falls could find an affordable home in a similarly scenic community like Pagosa Springs… if they were willing to live in a place where nothing much was going on. But as Archuleta County slowly dug its way out of the Great Recession — with the help of new commercial development and investments by Walmart, Kroger Foods, and Tractor Supply — the community has become increasingly attractive to retirees, and less affordable for working families.
The COVID pandemic is just making matters worse… for working families.
According to this interactive map based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, unemployment has become an especially big problem in certain places during the pandemic. In Colorado, the towns hit the hardest by job losses have been the tourist towns. Telluride and San Miguel County, 17% unemployment. Vail and Eagle County, 16%. Breckenridge and Summit County, 17%. Aspen and Pitkin County, 16%.
And the poster child for unemployment impacts in Southwestern Colorado: Archuleta County. 11.3%…