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How to Save a Ski Town

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Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#271

Post by davidw »

asdff wrote: post #172
davidw wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't build most buildings in Tirol in the US due to zoning restrictions. When we lived in Innsbruck, we had an apartment with no parking spot. Here in Bend, there is tons of parking, because people regard automobile storage as more important than places for people to live.

Not sure how you are going to convince people who live in a blizzardy mountain town to start walking to work en masse. Snowmobiles are popular in the winter at least.

My wife, baby daughter and I lived in Innsbruck and walked or biked to most things. They clear the streets and sidewalks pretty well. It gets a lot of snow - they hosted the winter olympics there twice.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#272

Post by swader999 »

zwirbl wrote: post #179
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #93

Outlaw shaped skis. Everybody has to ski on long, straight skis that can’t be wider than 65 under foot. Watch property values plummet in a week. Edit: accurate prediction of the future: https://youtu.be/qhuHuQ1Bu3o

People would have their knees repaired, then sell ar a loss

Wider under foot is harder on the knees actually, especially on groomed runs.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#273

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

aahortwwy wrote: post #232
emteycz wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect anything, I just find the notion of selling without wanting to sell funny.

Some friends in WA sold without wanting to sell. The market value of their home grew enormously, and with it their property taxes. They live frugally on a low, fixed income and eventually the tax burden grew too much. So yeah, they got a nice capital gain, but they had to move away from the home they bought as newlyweds and raised their family in. It probably would've been better for their children's inheritance if t…

Sounds like shitty property tax laws. That kind of law is not normal in the rest of the world, afaik.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#274

Post by aahortwwy »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #273
aahortwwy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some friends in WA sold without wanting to sell. The market value of their home grew enormously, and with it their property taxes. They live frugally on a low, fixed income and eventually the tax burden grew too much. So yeah, they got a nice capital gain, but they had to move away from the home they bought as newlyweds and raised their family in. It probably would've been better for their children's inheritance if t…

Sounds like shitty property tax laws. That kind of law is not normal in the rest of the world, afaik.

It's a very common type of property tax law in the USA, and quite popular here on HN (see: opposition to Prop. 13 in CA).

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#275

Post by chiefalchemist »

SwagGrocery wrote: post #234
asdff wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resort towns should be considered more like cruise ships. I wouldn't expect a deckhand to afford a condo on a oceanliner, but if their labor is needed it seems its not an issue for the employer to provide housing. Plenty of industries provide housing for their workers. If housing is such an issue for labor to cover itself, capital should just pay for what its labor requires to exist. Somehow along the line we went fr…

This is where it's headed. The complete Disney-ification of ski towns. 2 or 3 mega resort companies will control the entire economy surrounding the resort: hotels, restaurants, spas, theaters, etc. Some of the amenities will operate at a loss, but their presence will push up the value of the higher margin amenities.

Frankly, this is true for any "tourist attraction." The attraction has limited geography. The population is increasing. Housing supply is relatively fixed, demand isn't.

Either these attrictions build vertical, or suddenly more tourist attraction locations come online, or mortgage rates increase significantally for any home after the first one.

None of those things are going to happen.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#276

Post by lmm »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #250
lmm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tying voting to property ownership is not some law of nature.

Neither is voting a law of nature, and nor is property ownership. So what's your point? That we don't have to do it this way ? Well, sure. But what's the actual alternative?

Where I live planning rules are set on a national level. The whole notion of incorporated and unincorporated land seems like a weird US-ism.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#277

Post by refurb »

ako wrote: post #270
refurb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it a bad equilibrium? If someone is willing to trade the time and cost of a long commute, can’t we trust that they decided it’s worth it? I keep hearing how we need to make the Bay Area affordable, but I’m also thinking “price is a signal” and people deciding to live elsewhere is exactly what we want . I spent time in a developing country and the government is struggling to creating new economic centers but fa…

Yes, often it is a bad equilibrium. When prices rise, taxes rise, and often people who were able to live somewhere no longer can. They're forced to move, eventhough they'd rather stay. This also happened in the bay area, where people were involuntarily forced out of their homes. See for an example: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/03/23/after-decades-in-wic...

Taxes don’t rise in CA due to Prop 13.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#278

Post by refurb »

space_fountain wrote: post #269
refurb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it a bad equilibrium? If someone is willing to trade the time and cost of a long commute, can’t we trust that they decided it’s worth it? I keep hearing how we need to make the Bay Area affordable, but I’m also thinking “price is a signal” and people deciding to live elsewhere is exactly what we want . I spent time in a developing country and the government is struggling to creating new economic centers but fa…

Idk, we do live in a bit of a climate emergency so using government policy (not the free market) to discourage density seems like a bad way to achieve that. Also I guess I left out the worst bit of the high cost of living equilibrium. Homelessness has been connected pretty cleanly to high housing costs. It isn't even that surprising, people find moving difficult and even more so when you're at the bottom of the econo…

But it makes no sense to solve for one dense urban area when you could have people go elsewhere and create a different sense urban area.

And it doubly doesn’t make sense when it’s more costly.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#279

Post by hamolton »

garren wrote: post #135
hamolton wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purg, Wolf Creek, & Loveland haven't had big lines any times I've been there. My mother said Los Alamos, Santa Fe, & Taos lift lines are far better now on powder days than when she grew up thanks to more chairs on lifts + high speed lifts.

In the case of Loveland, you just have to contend with the snarl of traffic on I70. It's right before the Eisenhower tunnel, so it isn't as bad as Vail or Copper just up the road, but I70 traffic has gotten pretty brutal over the years. I've had routine 1 hour drives to/from a resort turn into 3-4+ hours more often than not. Wolf Creek makes sense though - that's a bit more of a commitment. Your typical skier is prob…

I-70 is the reason I didn't apply to jobs in Colorado. I don't know how much people carpool, but at least there's some infrastructure for it now. I just wish the state would put some extra tax on the resorts to fund a free ski bus with dedicated lanes where convenient. How sick would that be?

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#280

Post by space_fountain »

refurb wrote: post #278
space_fountain wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, we do live in a bit of a climate emergency so using government policy (not the free market) to discourage density seems like a bad way to achieve that. Also I guess I left out the worst bit of the high cost of living equilibrium. Homelessness has been connected pretty cleanly to high housing costs. It isn't even that surprising, people find moving difficult and even more so when you're at the bottom of the econo…

But it makes no sense to solve for one dense urban area when you could have people go elsewhere and create a different sense urban area. And it doubly doesn’t make sense when it’s more costly.

I think it doesn't really seem like that's the equilibrium. Instead it seems like it causes long commutes. In the bay area huge numbers of people commute into sf from huge distances. It does seem like the situation being different would be better.
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