Yesterday in Part Three, we touched briefly on the dramatic drop in the number of single-family homes for sale in Archuleta County, from a high of 414 homes on the market in the summer of 2016, down to 69 this month, March 2021. These are relatively precise numbers, based on data from the Multiple Listing Service.
Our goal this week is to create a “map” of Pagosa Springs, according to a particular dictionary definition: “noun. Figuratively, a distinct and precise representation of something.”
There are some holes in our map. But certain details can be identified. We can point, for example, to the data available on the AirDNA website, a company that tracks vacation rentals all across the US. Here’s the physical map I found there yesterday.
1,040 homes — the majority being 2- and 3-bedroom homes — have become vacation rentals. Many of these belong to a wealthier class of folks, perhaps retirees, who bought them as second homes, but who also rent them out to tourists. The fact that our local governments allow these commercial operations in residential-zoned neighborhoods has made it more financially viable for out-of-towners to afford a second-home here.
Is there a connection between 1,040 vacation rentals… and a real estate inventory that’s dropped to a mere 17% of where it was in the summer of 2016? We can’t truly say. That’s another hole in our conceptual map.
While our neighborhoods were being converted into motel districts, home prices have been going up… and up… and up. The reasons are not entirely clear. The median home price in Archuleta County has more than doubled since 2012. Some of us thought the Great Recession would result in a ‘price correction” — and that did indeed happen. But only temporarily.
A chart shared previously, provided by Pagosa Realtor Lee Riley:
I’ve been enjoying our local library during the pandemic — in particular, the inter-library loan system which provides access to books in libraries all across the state. This week, I’ve been reading The Up Side of Down, by author Megan McArdle. The book is subtitled, “Why Failing Well is the Key to Success.” Ms. McArdle recognizes that many of our most valuable learning experiences take place when we’re putting ourselves out on a limb and attempting something we really have no idea how to do — and often, failing in the attempt.
She is essentially promoting past failure as a key to future success — especially, perhaps, when the failure isn’t the “crash and burn” type. She recommends many small failures over one massive failure — which means, owning up to our mistakes before they get out of hand. Not something humans like to do, however… ‘owning up to our mistakes’.
She discusses the curious situation where company or organization is heading for a massive failure, and everyone can see it coming, but management continues to act as if everything is hunky dory. The same type of inexplicable behavior is seen during natural events — tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and so on — and also in building fires and crashed planes.
Many people — even most people — act as if nothing serious is taking place, and end up dying as a result. From her book:
When the planes hit the World Trade Center, the building was on fire. But the fire wasn’t close to most people’s offices at first; their work space looked exactly like it did twenty minutes before. This made it easy to think they could take a few minutes and check out what their coworkers thought of the situation, rather than grabbing their stuff and heading for the stairs…
This human failing is known as “normalcy bias.”
From Wikipedia:
About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster… Normalcy bias has also been called analysis paralysis, the ostrich effect… and by first responders, the negative panic…
I supposed this explains why school children participate in fire drills one a month. If a fire did break out, they would already be trained to get the hell out, quickly. This is why we sit through the same boring safety lecture every time we board an airplane — so that when the oxygen facemasks drop from the ceiling, we will actually put them on our faces, without having to think about it.
Apparently, psychologists have come up with various theories to try and explain why humans act this way, none of which Ms. McArdle finds satisfactory. But what is clear, she writes, “is that even in the most extreme circumstances, when it is very, very clear that things are not normal, people have a very strong propensity to act as if they are [normal].”
It’s very, very clear to me — as a regular observer of my community — that things are not “normal” in Pagosa Springs in March 2021. It’s very, very clear to me, that we’ve been. for several years, in the midst a slow-moving, multi-year plane crash or building fire, but most people are talking with their friends and coworkers and agreeing, together, that nothing really unusual is taking place.
It seems we can expect 70 percent of our community, and perhaps 70 percent of our community leaders, to act as if nothing has changed, and that everything is just fine.
Nevertheless, I will continue moving forward with this conceptual mapping process — my little editorial project for the week.
I wrote to our Archuleta County Clerk’s office a couple of days ago, because I didn’t have current numbers for a piece of this conceptual map: political party membership. That’s something we might not think about, when analyzing the conditions in our community.
Tomi Bliss, our County Election Administrator, promptly sent me the numbers, as shown:
Republican: Active: 4,274; Inactive: 392
Unaffiliated: Active: 4,147; Inactive: 473
Democrat: Active: 2,203; Inactive: 219
Libertarian: Active: 92; Inactive: 12
American Constitution: Active: 42; Inactive: 4
Green: Active: 27; Inactive: 7
Approval Voting: Active: 5; Inactive: 1
Unity: Active: 4; Inactive: 1
(Inactive voters did not vote in the most recent election, but remain on the voter rolls, in most cases, so long as their mail ballot is not returned as ‘undeliverable’.)
There’s a well-known tendency, among Republicans and Democrats, to blame our most pressing current problems on the policies promoted by the ‘opposite party’.
Tomorrow, I’d like to take a closer look at that tendency, as it applies locally.