The cost of progress: Montana's next endangered species

I grew up in rural Iowa. For those who aren't aware, rural Iowa means farm country.

OK, call me a hick. I spent my share of time feeding livestock and shucking corn. I also spent a great deal of time exploring the 100 acres of land that my step-dad inherited from his father, and I came to see its many faces as one of the greatest treasures I had ever seen or experienced. I learned a lot from both the land and the way of life that it made possible.

Not everyone appreciates the value of farm country. I've seen that first hand. I've watched as, little by little, some of most productive farm land in the country was swallowed up by developers. Fields once golden with bountiful crops were replaced with concrete and asphalt, until the few remaining farms near those urban areas like DesMoines, Chicago, and dozens of suburban communities stood side by side with strip malls and subdivisions—all in the name of progress.

I've got nothing against progress. In fact, I'm totally in favor of it, if it is truly progress. I look forward to a trip to Best Buy or Home Depot as much as the next guy and have developed a deep appreciation of tools and technology, which all of my friends refer to as "big boy toys."

I do, however, have a complaint about the actual cost of what often passes for progress. Since moving to the Flathead Valley, I have already seen an exodus of good men and women, along with the kind of families who once contributed to the quality and character of a great state, who have become casualties of rising property taxes and a greater cost of living. Some of them, I considered to be friends. Today, they and their families live in other states, where they can afford to own land and live in a decent home without having to file for bankruptcy.

More and more, I talk to people who have grown up in Montana but can no longer afford to live here. Some of them are third and fourth generation Montanans, whose grandparents and great grandparents help to settle the area. Some own property that have been in their family for more than a hundred years.

Today, many of these families are having to subdivide and sell off pieces of what has long been a legacy, passed down from one generation to the next—all because it has become an impossible challenge to pay property taxes that continue to be driven up because rapid development, as well as costly homes and condominiums for wealthy outsiders.

Obviously, I'm not against people from other areas discovering the beauty and resources inherent to Glacier Country and the Flathead Valley. If that were the case, I wouldn't be here myself. However, what I cannot quite swallow is that people who have only recently come to our valley can displace lifetime residents, some of whom are third and fourth generation Montanans, by driving of property costs to the point that it is no longer practical to own land.

The fact is, this is their home. They have worked hard for it, as have their fathers and mother, grandparents and great grandparents. They have a right to what is theirs. Why should they be penalized for another man's wealth? Indeed, why should they be unreasonably taxed for other people's vision of what the Flathead should be?

Whose Montana is it, anyway?

Several month's ago, one family who attended church with my wife and I loaded their moving van and relocated to Kentucky. The husband informed me, in spite of my attempts to talk him out of it, that he could no longer justify struggling to make ends meet in a one story, three bedroom house when he could make as much or more in another state, while living in a house three times as large that cost only half of what he was paying for his home in Columbia Falls. Sadly, Columbia Falls is more affordable than some other parts of the valley.

Since he, his wife and three children headed south, I have watched other families follow the lead, in search of the American Dream, which they had once found here in Flathead Valley. I'm afraid I have to ask the question that so many have begun asking and which some have been asking for years. That question is simply, "Why?"

Is this progress? If so, Montana lawmakers need to realize that it doesn't seem nearly so glamorous to many who started out here as it does to those recent arrivals who have brought their money and standard of living with them. To some of us, quality of living has less to do with the cost of one's home and more to do with a way of life. Sadly, that way of life may be Montana's next endangered species, if someone does not intervene and soon.

Jacob Doran is the reporter for the West Shore News.