One Nation, Under God

Out-of-staters often lead us

I recently read another article concerning the influx of new residents to Montana and what they should know in order to fit in out here.

It’s a tired, overworked story.

The reality of the situation is quite different. We have to adjust to them, not the other way around.

While long-time Montana residents bemoan the flood of out-of-staters fleeing the places where they were born and spent their careers, those are the same folks we most often choose to lead us.

Our governor is from New Jersey.

Our representative in the U.S. House is from Baltimore.

Our state auditor is from California.

It’s nothing new. Only 10 of our 25 governors were Montana natives. Two men to hold the state’s highest office were Canadians and Hugo Aronson, Montana’s 14th governor, was born in Sweden.

We’re largely a state of people from somewhere else, but we fell in love with this place in part because it’s so different from where we came, cleaner, prettier, less populated.

I arrived in 1970 and wanted nothing more than to fit in. Montana was wilder, less crowded then. It sure didn’t look like everywhere else. Now a lot of it kinda does.

Sprawling subdivisions of look-a-like homes surround all the larger cities in the state. Montana’s rivers are packed bank to bank with floaters and anglers. There’s even a golf course in Paradise Valley, built recently by Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons and co-founder of Home Depot.

Unfortunately all that prosperity hasn’t rubbed off on many residents who long ago made sacrifices to live here. Folks still working for a living find themselves priced out of the housing market. The median home price in Bozeman ‑‑ where the local Taco Bell is offering new employees $18 an hour ‑‑ has risen to more than $700,000.

It’s getting hard to afford to live here unless you are from somewhere else.

There’s no relief in sight. Instead of addressing the hardships facing working Montanans, the recently adjourned state legislature instead spent much of its time on bills concerning transsexual athletes, and arming college students.

But that may be part of the draw. Folks from more liberal parts of the country could find Montana’s current conservative political climate refreshing. And because they’re from somewhere else they can afford to live here while many others are quite literally getting priced out of house and home.

That’s the story.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]

 

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