I had come across the 14-item list citing our Town Council’s heartfelt desires for the year 2040, in the Daily Post archives from December 2019.
A couple of months before the pandemic arrived.
Here’s that list once again, as assembled during the Town Council’s summer 2019 planning retreat.
- Convenient Bypass for Walkable Downtown.
- Well-Connected Trail Network and Sidewalk System Leading to Multi-use Park Facility at Yamaguchi South.
- Pagosa Springs Continues to be a Refreshingly Authentic and Healthy Small Mountain Town.
- Residents Walking Through Neighborhoods on Sidewalks — Smiling!
- Businesses and Homes That Appeal To and Support a Wide Range of People.
- A Thriving Economy (not solely tourism based).
- Less Cars on Main Street (due to a new parking garage).
- Well Maintained and Connected Neighborhoods Where People of Diverse Backgrounds and Incomes Live Together.
- Preserved Open Spaces and Parks — Natural River Flowing Through Town (not encased in concrete).
- Streets, Sidewalks, Trails, and Parks are Modern, Clean, and Welcoming.
- A Diverse Age Strata Of Locals.
- An Active and Well-Functioning Local Citizen Government: Diverse Council and Long-Serving Staff.
- Infill Development Has Reduced Number Of Vacant Lots (infill vs. greenfield).
- A Large Community Recreation Center.
You can download the 2019-2020 Goals and Objectives here. The 20-year vision can be found on the final two pages of that document.
This list resulted from a question posed by facilitator Yvonne Wilcox — basically, “What would you like to see Pagosa become 20 years in the future?” — and it probably took the Council and staff somewhat by surprise; the answers, shown above, did not result from a vigorous discussion, or from hours of research and careful consideration. But it does represent some off-the-cuff ideas from the people in charge of our Town government, prior to the pandemic.
Does it represent a vision of an ‘authentic community’?
We’ve juxtaposed a certain comparison in previous Daily Post editorials, when considering what type of community we are creating here among the San Juan Mountains… looking for similarities and differences.
Pagosa Springs vs. Disneyland.
Pagosa Springs, being a place where we want an authentic community, someday.
Disneyland, which was never conceived as an authentic community, and can never be anything but an authentic theme park.
In the photo above, we see Main Street USA, basically a completely fake version of a quintessential American small town, circa 1910. In the distance we see the iconic Castle — the spectacular residence of the King and Queen, which also serves as the entrance to Fantasyland.
If we were to compare what is happening in this photograph of Main Street USA, with the vision of the future assembled by the Pagosa Springs Town Council in 2019, we can find some interesting comparisons.
Here are some items in the Town Council’s “Our Vision of What We Want Pagosa To Be Like in 2040” list, that can also be used to describe Main Street USA in Disneyland:
- Convenient Bypass for Walkable Downtown.
- Well-Connected Trail Network and Sidewalk System…
- [People] Walking Through Neighborhoods on Sidewalks — Smiling!
- Less Cars on Main Street…
- Preserved Open Spaces and Parks…
- Streets, Sidewalks, Trails, and Parks are Modern, Clean, and Welcoming.
- A Diverse Age Strata…
- A Large Community Recreation Center.
I’ve included “A Large Community Recreation Center” because, in a sense, Disneyland is essentially that. A Very Large (Outdoor) Community Recreation Center.
We don’t currently have a ‘Large Community Recreation Center’ in Pagosa Springs (although there’s a smaller, private one serving PLPOA properties.) But like Disneyland, Pagosa Springs itself could be described as a Large (Outdoor) Community Recreation Center.
Here are the parts of the Town Council’s 20-year vision that might fit Pagosa someday, but will never fit Disneyland.
- Pagosa Springs Continues to be a Refreshingly Authentic and Healthy Small Mountain Town.
- Businesses and Homes That Appeal To and Support a Wide Range of People.
- A Thriving Economy (not solely tourism based).
- Well Maintained and Connected Neighborhoods Where People of Diverse Backgrounds and Incomes Live Together.
- An Active and Well-Functioning Local Citizen Government: Diverse Council and Long-Serving Staff.
- Infill Development Has Reduced Number Of Vacant Lots (infill vs. greenfield).
I did not include “Natural River Flowing Through Town (not encased in concrete)” in the items that might apply to Pagosa Springs, because our river through downtown has not been “natural” for many years now. The Town government has spent millions of dollars making the downtown river into a “natural theme park” featuring walking trails, pedestrian bridges, artificial fishing and boating enhancements, tourist overlooks, plastic dome greenhouses, and of course, our own modest version of the Fantasyland Castle.
Main Street USA will undoubtedly remain a “Modern, Clean, and Welcoming’ fake town, with walkable, automobile-free streets and sidewalks, where tourists walk through the neighborhoods, smiling. But the ‘economy’ there will always be solely tourism based. No one will ever live in Disneyland. The employees will always live elsewhere and commute to their jobs.
Other than the people sweeping the sidewalks and manning the fake storefronts, the people walking through Main Street USA will always be tourists.
Main Street USA is a fine example of an authentic theme park town. It was built to be exactly that, and that’s how it functions. It will never have actual neighborhoods, or actual housing where People of Diverse Backgrounds and Incomes Live Together.
Pagosa Springs, meanwhile, has been investing millions of dollars into making itself more and more like Disneyland, and less and less like a refreshingly authentic town.
How did this happen? And why?
I have my own theory about that. And, of course, the reasons why an authentic community would re-design itself into a tourism-based theme park are complicated. They have a lot to do with the very human quest for ‘wealth’ and ‘status’ as primary lifetime goals, and with viewing ‘community’ as relatively unimportant.
But… is that the direction we want to keep heading?