Endless Progress

  

“This is never going to end, is it”, I asked my wife while queuing up behind another endless line of dump trucks making a left-hand turn into the limitless quarries in Brown’s Canyon.  “No, it probably isn’t, even if they run out of rock, water, open space and imagination”, she replied wistfully.  And that is the point of it, isn’t it, the truth.  Growth and development, building and ‘progress’ are here to stay, and we might as well all get used to it.  There is another entire city growing around Jordenelle, the open space at Kimballs Junction is going to be something big, and Heber City is off the charts, about to experience death by suburbia.  Try as we may, we are not going to stop it.

Years ago when we were involved in building Deer Valley we told ourselves that we might as well do it to make sure it was done right, because someone else was going to do it anyway.  When the Olympics came, we welcomed the world here and then were surprised when half of them stayed.  When Vail took over and tried to take our town name we were outraged initially but were smugly satisfied when we ultimately won the naming rights to our own home.  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  Then when Covid came and folks came out to occupy their second home that make up half of our town, we were understanding, but we never expected them to stay and telecommute to Timbuktu forever.  It was these big decisions that shaped our future as well as the little, day-to-day positive commitments like trial networks, open space, affordable housing and round-abouts.

We chained ourselves to bulldozers with cell phones and laptops, showed up Ad-Infinitum at meetings and spoke Ad-Nauseam at public hearings, much to our dismay.  Zoning changes from 16 units to 1600 units were moderated and mitigated but still approved at 1200 units when an obvious compromise of 808 units would have been more than reasonable and palatable.  We took that sitting down but that set the stage for a pro-growth, development friendly future.  Backroom deals with developers were rampant when money talked, and nobody walked in Park City.  Compromises and trade-offs were made.  When we stood our ground, the State stepped in and limited the impact fees we could charge development to at least pay for itself or they circumvented our input and approval process completely in the name of affordable housing and mass transit.  We never stood a chance.

It is the mind set of a cancer cell to grow unrestrained, but it is ultimately human nature too.  It happens everyplace good and nice despite all of our NIMBY good intentions.  Sometimes I visualize what all this will look like at buildout, if that ever comes.  Every flat spot will have something on it because this is a property-right, individual freedom type state out here in the wild wild western USA.  Will we look like Phoenix, Boulder or Vail, or something nicer like Aspen, Carmel or Stowe.  Will the next new generation still think it is nice and special around here and that the traffic is not a real problem?  What I prefer to do is try to think of this place as it was 50 years ago when we had an old run down mining town, endless meadows and hills and a blank canvas to draw on.   Did we do the best we could?  Did we give up.?  Did we sell out?

So don’t despair or be discouraged, this type of ‘progress’ is not unique.  We are not re-inventing the wheel.  It is not complicated, and we are not building pianos here. We can go out there and see what other towns are doing or have done and try to imitate and assimilate the best of it.  Aspen and Vail, Boulder and Bend did not become perfect examples of new urbanism overnight.   If we make mistakes, we can fix them.  Nothing is forever.  As the final interpretive panel prosaically predicts at the Mc Polin Barn nature trail. “The landscape is everchanging.”  We have to try.  We have to insert ourselves and our opinions into the process, relentlessly, and strive to elect good leaders, religiously.  We still have a choice and we still have a say and we still have the resilience to accept, for better or worse, what has been done with this pretty nice place.  Stand up, speak up, and forever hold your peace.