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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
For anyone who wants to understand what’s actually happening in ski country, this is also a story about housing and NIMBYism. People want to blame the resorts but they don’t actually control land use in ski towns. NIMBYs do. That’s the story.
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tf jenkins
@thomasfain
Thanks Park City, @VailResorts, and the striking ski patrol. Really creating a fun and safe environment. I hope the lawsuits begin to trickle in and every one of you feel financial pain for your negligence.
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David Watson 🥑
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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
to be clear: private equity takeover of ski areas has been awful, if not inevitable, and patrollers deserve a MUCH bigger raise than $2. But context is important: Resort owners operate adjacent to towns governed by NIMBYs who wreck the entire labor pool. not just patrollers.
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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
here’s a TL;DR of the history, for anyone interested:
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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
Replying to @lil__pocho @guy5556712 and 2 others
An HCN writer wrote a book on this topic many years back, but I can’t remember who. The issue is, US ski areas began as mom-and-pop businesses and were always super marginal. They needed revenue from housing development to cover costs, but mostly got shut down by locals …
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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
Telluride leveraged its entire city budget to buy and preserve a massive piece of land adjacent to town and ban all housing across the entire valley. Now people have to drive 1.5 hours each way over treacherous mountain passes to get to work.
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Public Sector Energy guy
@guy_public
Yep, and the patrol wanted to a raise to be able to afford to live 30 miles away instead of 50. The traffic is terrible into Park City from SLC. So bad, that Deer Valley expanded downhill with marginal ski terrain to be able to build a new base area. Park City is super NIMBY
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Kerbal Engineering Systems
@KerbalSystems
The interesting thing to note is anywhere in the ski towns where the resort DOES control the land use it’s the most transit-oriented, dense, walkable construction they can build
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Chen Fang
@chfanguw
Federal land ownership (36.2% in CO but much higher in the western part) + NIMBYism is just synergistic & way more potent.
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(((Matthew Lewis))) cults & consequences
@mateosfo
the federal land ownership of ski pistes is a bit of a red herring though. Ski towns are exclusively on private land, quaint, and mostly low-density. Most could 4-6x housing, house every worker, and from the tops of the mountains you’d barely be able to tell the difference.
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David Fields
@ProfDavidFields
This is about resorts not paying living wages, while turning towns into playgrounds for the privileged—yes, NIMBY, but not in the way you interpret it as a counterposition to the market fundamentalism of YIMBY.
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TheOmniZaddy 🌹🔰🏗
@TheOmniZaddy
Is there appetite for a bipartisan Ski Town Rescue Bill to just preempt land use regimes there? I feel like ski towns have narrow NIMBY constituencies but also skiing is fairly limited to elite these days? Seems too niche to have any significant mass blowback
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Upzone New Jersey 🏗️
@upzonenj
I was going insane the past two elections because Adam Frisch, who challenged Lauren Boebert, was the worst example of an Aspen NIMBY you could ever find, but he was loved because of who he ran against.
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Austin Bell
@stork_sculpture
And under the right circumstances, that can be really good! Tourism (and military personnel) pump tons of money into the local economy and consume zero social services! But it takes YIMBYism.
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Austin Bell
@stork_sculpture
If they don't build to what they're good at, they will price their locals out. They are not going to build generalized local economies like Denver or Dallas. That's just a fact,
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Austin Bell
@stork_sculpture
Rocky Mountain ski towns are basically in the same boat as Hawaii. They have two assets in the US/global economy, scenery and natural amenities (well, Hawaii has strategic naval value as well).
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Malarkey Roofing Products
@MalarkeyRoofing
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Trevor Acorn 🔰🌹🇺🇸🌎
@trevoracorn
I talked to a homeowner in Breck who was mad about a local who developed some units. She’s now on the board to prevent anymore 🤷 I told her they should build up not out to help with traffic and parking. Also look at towns in the Alps as a model.
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Anonymous55390
@anonymous572256
This is exactly it. Also, look at the guy’s profile. Dudes who wear suits Monday through Friday who ski Park City twice a year only on holidays demand flawless execution and project litigiousness when their plan is perturbed.
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Tarrant County Burning🟧
@sportsidiocracy
Correct: places like Vail refuse to provide affordable housing for the huge hospitality labor force it requires causing an artificial labor shortage. There are no towns near Vail to handle the housing capacity required, either. It’s elites shooting their own foot.
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