This happens over and over. Some people do their "build it and they will come" trick on some abandoned dump. They get some people together to market it and then make a profit when people are attracted to the next "New Thing." When that cachet fades, they start a new one somewhere else. Taos, Eagle's Nest, Marfa, and the like. Of course they mainly attract old people who are retired and don't *need* jobs. Then when the investors age out, the places revert to being dumps and ghost towns.
Some of them happen to be a place of enough size that will be self supporting, sort of. They just become tourist traps. Las Vegas, Nashville, Austin, Santa Fe, Venice Beach, New Orleans, Orlando, Key West, Orlando, San Francisco, and the Los Angeles area in general. The only jobs that they have, for the most part, are minimum wage service jobs that don't even earn enough to actually afford to live there.
Many are the brainchild of some ignorant "city development" beaurocrat. One that they did down here where I live was was promoted as the "World Birding Center" which was hyped that it would bring people in droves to birdwatch. Sometimes it takes the form of a professional sports team. Sometimes it is giving financial incentives to companies in the hopes of spurring on development. Usually in the form of massive tax breaks that once run out, the businesses move on to some other desperate community that will underwrite the move.
What a strange little town. I like the way you describe it from a perspective of functionality and sustainability. I find it a little unusual that it exists in isolation there. It brings to mind my recent impression of Niagara Falls ON. that we used to visit as a kid, and later as a mini holiday.
I used to see the glamor and glitz as a nice place to escape to, but now it comes across as a decadent and wasteful money trap. I'm fascinated by the morbid undertones just blocks away from the beautiful falls and parks, where signs of poverty and hopelessness can be found. Like Marfa, it's become an artificial town propped up by tourism and hype disconnected from reality.
It's not a bug, it is a feature.
This happens over and over. Some people do their "build it and they will come" trick on some abandoned dump. They get some people together to market it and then make a profit when people are attracted to the next "New Thing." When that cachet fades, they start a new one somewhere else. Taos, Eagle's Nest, Marfa, and the like. Of course they mainly attract old people who are retired and don't *need* jobs. Then when the investors age out, the places revert to being dumps and ghost towns.
Some of them happen to be a place of enough size that will be self supporting, sort of. They just become tourist traps. Las Vegas, Nashville, Austin, Santa Fe, Venice Beach, New Orleans, Orlando, Key West, Orlando, San Francisco, and the Los Angeles area in general. The only jobs that they have, for the most part, are minimum wage service jobs that don't even earn enough to actually afford to live there.
Many are the brainchild of some ignorant "city development" beaurocrat. One that they did down here where I live was was promoted as the "World Birding Center" which was hyped that it would bring people in droves to birdwatch. Sometimes it takes the form of a professional sports team. Sometimes it is giving financial incentives to companies in the hopes of spurring on development. Usually in the form of massive tax breaks that once run out, the businesses move on to some other desperate community that will underwrite the move.
Does the town have water? A town in the desert with climate change . . . no water, no growing food or raising farm animals.
What a strange little town. I like the way you describe it from a perspective of functionality and sustainability. I find it a little unusual that it exists in isolation there. It brings to mind my recent impression of Niagara Falls ON. that we used to visit as a kid, and later as a mini holiday.
I used to see the glamor and glitz as a nice place to escape to, but now it comes across as a decadent and wasteful money trap. I'm fascinated by the morbid undertones just blocks away from the beautiful falls and parks, where signs of poverty and hopelessness can be found. Like Marfa, it's become an artificial town propped up by tourism and hype disconnected from reality.
Afterwards they can rename the place Barfa.
😆