To the West of my portal there are burned forests in Arizona. South and east there are Mexican border towns where severed heads occasionally show up in Igloo coolers. Large scale unemployment has been replaced with large scale industrial copper mining. Another Lose/Lose proposition.
This cycle we’ve seen many, many times before in the endless cycle of boom and bust America. Here, it’s been immortalized in the movie classic Salt of the Earth which occurred and was filmed a few miles from where I write. But if small towns in the U S of A are to survive, a lot of revisioning needs to take place that utilizes each and every community asset in a customized, perfectly tailored solution which, succeed or fail, will lead to a stronger more humane community. This is how it could happen here.
Our town was one of many that was swept up in the rush to attract ‘call centers’ to rural communities as a means of job creation. Which was, of course, until anybody who knew anything picked up a copy of an outdated Wired magazine and discovered (much too late, of course) that India and Puerto Rico and a dozen other locations could whip our collective ass economically on this front. Score: Rural America loses, Everybody else wins. This stimulated the arthritic minds of local economic planners to do asset inventories which, to our embarrassment, simply revealed the obvious:
Yes, we have much underutilized retail space.
Yes, we need more low cost housing.
Yes, enhanced tourism would be nice.
That will be $10,000 please.
But here (and I’m sure the same technique would work elsewhere), if you really put your head in a Google Satellite map mentality, you can see the forest AND the trees. We have some truly unbelievable and extremely exceptional assets that could rocket our small rural community of 9,000 (plus or minus, if you count horses and chickens) to some extraordinary heights should we choose to stand and deliver.
The real base in our locale for that job creating recovery is the old Ft. Bayard, a post Civil War outpost established to fight in the Indian Wars against the indigenous Apache people in what is now the Gila Wilderness area. After many uses (tuberculosis hospital, veterans care facility, frontier fort) this steam heated, spring fed, once totally self supporting, 93 building complex with millions of historic square footage and battleship grade construction is partly slated to be architecturally pickled as a national monument and partly torn down. Without municipal assets to recruit interest from biotech firms or advanced research laboratories, this entire mother lode of potential could 86 in a heartbeat. But there are plenty of strategies that could enlist military manufacturers in the subsidized restoration of many of the residential facilities (and they are truly architectural stunners!) as well as some spectacular visions that could use the active surface springs (That’s right! Active surface springs! In New Mexico! That’s like finding a McDonalds on Mars.) upon which to build again what once was a completely sustainable community with orchards, gardens, livestock, and trades. All powered by existing steam generators that use wood chips from the surrounding wilderness or solar power from the third most potent solar location in the state. I can only speculate as to the total number of good paying jobs in medical, construction, and all around healing that this would create. But whatever the number, the effect on the community at large would be transformational and generational.
The second (and by no means, secondary) local transformational asset is the Faywood Hotsprings complex. This truly ancient site has been in continuous use since prehistoric times and in its current incarnation stands as a restored resort crippled by an unexpected health calamity to its owners. This is one of those unique hybrid opportunities that I am amazed has not been instantly morphed into success. The percolating waters rush at 50 gallons per minute at 107 degrees. Mineral rich and with no pumping limitations, they are the perfect backbone for an enhanced Concentrated Solar utility generator or the absolutely perfect energy and food source for hydroponic vegetable producers such as Eurofresh, currently located in Wilcox AZ. some 96 miles from Faywood. Why these seemingly disparate assets haven’t been combined into job creating miracles is because modern miracles require cash, vision, and timing as opposed to burning bushes which require only Divine Intervention. Or matches. In our current economic calamity, burning bushes are common (see Arizona, first sentence), cash, vision, and timing are not.
A third and more investment heavy opportunity exists on the very edge of our historic 19th century downtown. Some 100 acres of rolling hills with bicycle access to downtown struggle to find the right formula for residential/commercial redevelopment. And the right, most appropriate model already exists. If you know Colorado you know Aspen, and if you know Aspen you know that it’s expensive, so much so that working people can’t afford to live there. But between Aspen and Glenwood there are a string of towns that had affordable housing in the form of trailers and trailer parks. Some years ago a design competition was held to come up with the most efficient, appropriate, and stylish use of space on a residential trailer lot (some 35’ x 75’, once again, plus or minus). The results were creative in the extreme, efficient in the essential, and stylish as in way cool. The existing subdivision of lots on the 100 (plus or minus) acres of downtown land is based on residential trailer use. Is there a quick easy fix? Of course not. Is it cheap compared to value and opportunity? To quote the Alaskan: You betcha! Is this a way to generate hundreds of new jobs as well as creating the first new neighborhood in like thousands of years (plus or minus)? Absofrigginlutely.
And lastly, we have a new Republican governor, Gov. Martinez, who thought that the best way to control illegal immigration was to deport anyone whose last name ended in a ‘Z’. That is, she thought so until somebody spelled her name. Another of her bright idea was to eliminate the film tax credit here in New Mexico in order to make sure that films like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and The Missing and Sunshine Cleaners and all the Breaking Bad episodes and Silverado and Cowboys and Aliens and lastly (to be shot here in sunny Silver City), Johnny Depp’s The Lone Ranger, were shot someplace else, like the rolling plains of New Jersey or something. Who knows.
But make no mistake: movies = jobs, historic redevelopment = jobs, food and solar energy production = jobs, and every rural community in America has some opportunities hidden in plain sight.
This is a quick review of our local possibilities which is cursory at best. I know that this nation and indeed, the whole world is awash in positive possibilities. I have somehow misplaced my official Harry Potter ™ wand or else I would have done the transforming already, but maybe that’s for the better.
The gods, after all, enjoy the taste of sweat.