Maturing gracefully
Quality of life will drive the new economy of western Montana
By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian

Western Montana will continue to cash in on its scenery, real and imagined, as newcomers come and stay - first, perhaps as vacationers, then as second-home owners, then as retirees. Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian

The new western Montana is leaving adolescence behind.

Now what?

“We're seeing some big things coming at us that are still tied to growth, but it's a changing complexion of growth,” said Larry Swanson, economist for the University of Montana's O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West.

The usual challenges loom, from low living wages to rising interest rates to the high cost of housing.

Construction activity remains strong, especially in places like Gallatin and Flathead counties, where gains from 2001 to 2004 were a hefty $60 million and $44 million, respectively.

“Preliminary data we have show no negative impact on construction from higher interest rates,” said Paul Polzin, director of UM's Bureau of Business and Economic Research. “But that's not going to last. There's just one way to go.”

Missoula County was by far stronger in the areas of real estate (up $40 million) and health care and social assistance (up $39 million), but had a relatively modest increase of $15 million in the construction area.

Western Montana's population increase has slowed from its breakneck pace of the last decade. Missoula County, for one, experienced a mild 1 percent climb in 2005 and the same is expected this year. Growth rates in Flathead and Ravalli counties, while outstripping Missoula's, have decreased as well.

“The '90s were like a wave, an influx (of people) from outside that wasn't really predicted,” said Swanson. “It sort of washed across western Montana, in some places more than others. Now it has become more selective. It's kind of picking and choosing. You can map this stuff.”

We're halfway across what Swanson sees as a quarter-century economic bridge that began a dozen and, in some cases, 15 years ago. The end of the span is a dozen or so years ahead, “a place that doesn't require growth to be prosperous,” he said.

In short, the people have come. Now what to do with us all?

Some signposts of our times:

In rural Madison County, 100 yards of riverfront property are as coveted, and expensive, as 100 feet of lakefront land in western Montana.

A Bozeman-based company announces plans for a four-story spa and upscale condominium development in Helena's Great Northern Town Center.

Plum Creek Timber Co., the largest private landowner in Montana and the U.S., puts thousands of acres up for sale in Montana and builds a subdivision near Marion.

In Missoula, pending mixed developments of multi-family dwellings and shops at the old Champion millsite, the Riverfront Triangle west of Orange Street and other downtown areas help scrub the dirty image of “infill.”

“We've had this growth, and growth can overwhelm you, or you can translate it,” Swanson said. “There's a growing sophistication in terms of how we're looking at this stuff.”

The timber industry, a staple in western Montana almost from the start of settlement, is a viable part of the maturation process as forest stewardship takes center stage.

“You may employ a lot of people, but it will be for caring for the forest. Then out of that will come the product,” said Swanson.

The trust and vocabulary needed to iron out the details are still works in progress, he added.

Manufacturing of log homes and small-diameter trees are helping change longstanding logging and milling practices by pushing the timber industry back “up the food chain,” in Swanson's words.

The latest round of oil and gas drilling, driven by high foreign prices, are pumping life into Montana's economy.

“But most of the boom is in eastern Montana,” Polzin said. “We have benefited from the reopening of the Troy mine and Montana Resources in Butte. To that extent, we have been experiencing some of the benefits of the natural resource boom.”

It's nothing to hang our hats on, cautioned Swanson, who called oil and gas drilling “a gypsy industry” that translates into “full motel rooms in Sidney.”

“You're going to tell me $70 (a barrel) oil is good for western Montana?” he said.

The business of mining is changing along with everything else in the economy.

“In this maturing phase, we'll still have those industries. It's just that there is no longer an anything-goes kind of imperative, or anything close to that,” said Swanson. “We've demonstrated that much or most of economic growth does not occur because of mining. It occurs because of the quality of living here.”

Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or by e-mail at kbriggeman@missoulian.com.