Balancing Livability and Making a Living

By Courtney Lowery, 11-01-05

I had a conversation with a friend last week from Omaha, Nebraska, where I lived for short spell before coming back home to Montana last January. He asked if I had been doing much outside. I told him I hadn’t really.

“Isn’t that why you moved back there?” he asked.

Indeed, that is why I had moved back here, among other things. But I just haven’t had the time. I told him it was a cruel, cruel irony.

It’s a familiar predicament for the brand of New Westerners I’m a part of. (Meaning struggling, ultra busy, 20-somethings.)

Too often, when we talk about the plight of a New Westerner, we conjure images of baby boomers and second-home owners. But the reality is, a fair amount of the growth our region will see in the next 10 years will also be in my age group (20 to 35) and good chunk of that will fall under the group demographers call “return migrants” – people with ties to region who leave for a few years, make a couple bucks and then move back home.

Take Missoula County for instance. Population projections for 2010 from the Center for the Rocky Mountain West’s Larry Swanson show growth booming here in the 50s to late 60s age range. But there is also an interesting upswing in folks in their 20s and mid-30s – the demographic that was seeing one of the most dramatic drops in population in the 2000 U.S. Census. (Meaning once people graduated from college, away they went.)

The data shows that the spike we get with the early 20s demographic (which reflects the University of Montana enrollment) no longer takes a dive by the time we hit the 25-30 range. Instead, it drops a little and then plateaus, meaning more people are either staying after attending college here or are returning from afar to start families and careers.

These return migrants are one of the many segments of the population moving to the West seeking “livability,” a multi-faceted word we drop gratuitously when we discuss population growth here in the Rockies. But while Western communities should continue the good work on increasing and maintaining our livability (and bragging about it), we can’t leave at just that. We love the fact that Western towns are leading the way in bike and pedestrian accessibility, farmer’s markets, public transportation, recreation, open space and the likes. But, if we increase livability and forget to bring economy into the discussion we will end up with communities where only second-home owners and the independently wealthy can take advantage of these amenities. (Take a look at the number of 20- to 35-year-olds in both the Bitterroot Valley and the Flathead area – while 50-60-year-olds are flocking in, fewer and fewer people my age can sustain themselves there.)

Livability isn’t just about the perks a community provides because without the economic freedom to actually live the livability, its presence is simply moot.

After my conversation with my Omaha friend and the subsequent sad realization, I left work the next day and instead of going straight home, I went for a long walk along the Clark Fork River. Fall was just hitting its peak and as the sun set behind me, it shot rays bouncing off of the aspens across the river, creating a deep red and yellow shadow on the water. There was utter silence even though I was just minutes from the city’s center.

I stopped short, sat down on the bank and wondered why the hell I don’t do this more often.

When I lived in Omaha, I would have given anything to be this close to this much beauty. I lived in the middle of sprawl, on a cul de sac, in a pre-fab apartment complex next to a mall. I watched movies set in Montana weekly, read all the Montana news I could get my hands on and literally dreamed of foothills and mountains and wide-open prairies (It sounds cheesy, but really, I did). I tried in vain to find something anything remotely natural to tide me over, spending my days off in the Omaha Zoo or paying $7 to walk on a manicured trail through a man-made forest.

The job I had paid well and demanded little of my free time. It was rut-digging work, but it was eight hours and I was home, done and I didn’t have to think about it until the next day. I had plenty of time on my hands and a little extra income to play with. But I had nothing to do and nothing to spend my money on (besides the $7 walks in the woods). It had the economy I needed, but not the livability I needed.

Now that I’m back in Montana, I have ready access (at no charge) to some of the most beautiful places to play on the planet, a vibrant community to take part in (farmers’ markets, First Fridays, drama, dance, film festivals, hopping little social coffee shops and a deep sense of community) and I’m close to my family and friends. It’s everything I had pined for in the Midwest.

The cruelty comes in when I realize that in the past year, I’ve had very little time to enjoy any of it.

It’s not an uncommon predicament – especially here in Missoula, where people in my peer group are a dime a dozen. Sure, there’s a few my age (the ones I scowl at) who have trust funds big enough to allow them the free time to actually take advantage of Missoula’s amenities, but many (but not all, mind you) of my peers are in my same spot – caught between trying to make a living and, well … living.

They’ve just moved back from New York or Boston or California. And they’ve either done so at the sacrifice of their career track and are now working two jobs to stay here. A few others have moved and been as lucky as I have been to find a job that treats them well, but is also tremendously demanding because it allows them to try to make a difference. And while “making a difference” sounds like a dream (mine anyway), it takes a lot of time and energy. It means long hours and free time spent consumed by your job.

Don’t get me wrong -- I’m not whining and I know that much of this rat race is self-inflicted. I could make time to hike or climb or fish and am now making a conscious effort to get out and enjoy Montana. And I do choose to work the hours I do and devote myself to my job, but many of my peers do not have that option. They have to work those long hours to keep that paying on that mortgage they likely couldn’t afford to start with (see Western housing prices).

I know there are people out there working on this very problem right now and I commend them for looking toward the future and working for a sustainable economy. I’m no expert on it how to achieve this but I do see firsthand that is integral in our conversation about the future of the region. It’s now important that these two seemingly separate discussions -- economy and livability – join forces to make sure we’re finding a balance lest we end up like Vail (all livability, little viable economy) or Omaha (decent economy, little livability). We just need to remember that we’re not only building a West for new migrants or preserving the West for old natives. We also have to make sure we make room for the in-betweeners.


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