The 2021 candy map was on our TV screen, showing the nation’s favorite candy, state-by-state.
Hershey Bars, Butter Cups and Reese’s are favorites in various states, and M&M’s, of course, and Jolly Rancher Hard Candy, and other candy brands, are favorites, in other states.
In Colorado, it’s Hershey Kisses.
Texans like Starburst candy. Oklahomans are chewing on Skittles, the most, this year. It’s Swedish Fish for folks out in Georgia, and the Tootsie Roll Pop is the candy of choice in Utah.
Shortly after the candy map heightened my awareness of candy, a TV reporter was discussing the San Francisco Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis, and that got my attention, too, because I’ve been reading news and commentary, in the Daily Post, about the housing crisis, where you are.
What strikes me the most, is the impact tourism is having on Pagosa Springs and neighboring communities… with the growing number of tourists, who are staying in Pagosa homes, exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing for working people, who are employed at restaurants, resorts, shops, and other workplaces.
In some ways, what’s been described as ‘disruptive businesses’ seem to be generating the crisis, the affordable housing shortage component of it, along with some other components.
I began writing about disruptive business models several years ago in a Nevada business publication, with short-term rental companies featured in the article. And over the years, since my article was published, I’ve been most interested in disruptive problems flowing downstream, so to speak, perhaps emanating from short-term rental companies’ headquarters, where short-term rental business models have been changing the character of communities. Sometimes, by squeezing working folks out of housing and rental markets, and by generating a number of other disruptive, disconcerting things to occur in communities.
The increasing number of tourists flocking to Pagosa neighborhoods, and turning homes into short-term rental motels, can be disconcerting.
I understand that homeowners, sometimes, need additional income, like in the past when people owning homes boosted a family’s bottom line, when families rented a room in their — or an entire floor of their — to tenants. The homeowners resided in one area of the house, and tenants resided in another area. Homeowners, generally, resided, year-around in their home, and their tenants resided long-term, as well.
Homes were homes. Tenants got to know the neighbors, and neighbors got to know the tenants.
There’s a difference, when staying in someone’s home is sort of like a one-night stand, so to speak. Even when travelers, renting short-term, stay for a few more days.
I also understand human nature driving homeowners to want to get as much revenue as they can from renting space in their home… short-term. From making their home a motel, perhaps without realizing how their neighbors, and neighborhood, will be impacted.
And, unfortunately, the top brass at short-term rental firms may not have disruptive problems up very high on their radar screens.
So, like Bill Hudson and others who are trying to heighten awareness by writing about the housing crisis, and short-term renters, and short-term rental companies, I’ll continue trying to do the same.
After all… In the heightening awareness game, maybe that candy map, featured prominently in the media, could stand a little competition?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.