Jackson's suicidal tendencies

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

By Sam Petri

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-One of the first quasi-facts you learn on the Wikipedia entry for Jackson, Wyo., is not that we are home to the Teton Range, two national parks, or the National Elk Refuge, but that we are home to the world’s largest ball of barbed wire. It’s plausible, sure, but I’ve never seen it and the user-generated information site can be inaccurate. Further web searches showed that some people in Texas also claim to have the world’s largest ball of barbed wire. Photos are available for both. So who has the biggest? I’ll leave that up to Guinness to decide.

But the Jackson Wikipedia entry does have at least one interesting and accurate piece of information - the fact that the United States Census has identified our area as a “Micropolitan Statistical Area.” The US Census defines this as “one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 in population but less than 50,000, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.” So are we a podunk town with the largest ball of barbed wire or a bustling Micropolitan area? On this one, I’ll go with the US Census.

For the most part, Teton County, Idaho, is Jackson’s “adjacent territory,” as is, to a lesser extent, the town of Alpine. The lower land prices in these “adjacent territories,” or “outlying communities” as we have come to call them has led to subdivisions and suburban cultures similar to those found in large metropolitan areas. This is most visible in Teton County, Idaho, where Victor is in constant construction and almost every neighborhood has a subdivision name like The _____ at Teton _____. You fill in the blanks. The same suburbanization is happening in Alpine.

The construction in Victor, Driggs and Alpine can be seen as good for those communities as there is an influx of people, money and jobs. But in Jackson, there is fear that the working man will leave town to go live in one of the cheaper “adjacent territories.” Already this is true when you look at the long string of pearls disappearing into the night over Teton Pass and down the Snake River Canyon at the end of every day. The fear is that Jackson will lose its community, that everything will turn to condos, that only second homeowners will own property, that the service industry will collapse and that what we have now will be lost in the future.

Has affordable housing been effective? I think it’s been as effective as a band-aid on a slit wrist. Should the Jackson community increase the rate of affordable housing? As much as we can, as quickly as possible, starting now and continuing into infinity or our vibrant community will be lost forever and all we’ll have to show for it is a big ball of barbed wire.
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Jackson's suicidal tendencies | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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