For a taste of a town's personality,
eschew the McArches, order at the cafe

By Charles Scoggin, M.D.
for Headwaters News

Some might call it "seeing the sights," but I prefer to think of it as "research." Driving around the West and, more to the point, eating around the West, gives me time to think and plenty to think about.

Doing their part for the homogenization of the planet, restaurant chains are close to completing their invasion and conquest of the interior West. McDonalds, KFC, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell fought in the vanguard.

Now Red Lobster, Chili’s, Bennigan’s, Outback, and other franchise-based eateries have taken the lead with a very simple recognition -- people will pay more if they can sit at a table and be waited upon.

These Wyoming counties had passed ordinances making wolves and grizzly bears illegal. Pinedale’s county commissioners had considered such a resolution, but the motion had taken a kinder, gentler turn, simply declaring that bears and wolves were "economically and socially unacceptable" in Sublette County.

Independent cafes already knew this, but it takes more than just commercial insight to go mano a mano with corporate muscle. A few of the cafes pluckily soldier on, refusing to recognize defeat and permitting aliens from the 21st Century to touch down in the past.

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Little in West is unaffected by growth

By Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
Nov. 6, 2002

It's not news that growth and change are pushing to extinction the last traits of the traditional West. What gets a bit startling is the variety of places beyond the fast-food parking lots where the effects of growth are felt.

Thirty-nine bird species have lost enough of their habitat to be in serious decline in Colorado, due to human development from peaks to prairie, and biologists warn birds are the first to go.

Logging mountain slopes has ruined flammulated owl and Lewis' woodpecker habitat, and on the Western Slope, impacted gray vireo numbers. Grazing, farming and subdivisions have cut into the sagebrush shrublands critical for Gunnison sage grouse, greater sage grouse, Brewer's sparrows and Virginia's warblers' numbers. One sensitive species, the lesser prairie chicken, has declined by 97 percent.

Development impinges on traditional Indian land and culture, as in the case of a Flagstaff-area ski resort that proposes new lifts and lights in an area that native culture holds sacred as shrines and as the abodes of powerful spirits.

Local groups and environmental organizations often find they lack the legal clout to stop what seems a never-ending slate of new golf courses and resort developments, among them an 18-hole, 71-home development on Wyoming's Snake River that critics say will displace bald eagles, and maybe, recreationists.

In Meridian, Idaho's fastest-growing city during the 1980s, the typical subdivision proposal was for about 50 homes a decade ago. Now developers are seeking approval for 1,000-home mini-cities on the urban fringe.

In Colorado, agricultural is becoming more valuable for the water rights than for production. Three entrepreneurs spent $25 million or so to buy 68 farms along the Arkansas River, supposedly with plans to sell the water to thirsty cities.

And throughout the West, ranchers are among the most pressed. The number of family ranches dropped from 2 million in 1970 to 1 million last year.

But the fact that small-town life and the Western aura are becoming increasingly rare arguably makes them more valuable. Kuna, Idaho, population 7,000 or so, grew by 37 percent since the 2000 census, replacing Meridian as fastest-growing community.

Analysts say it's because Kuna offers newcomers what Meridian and scores of other places have outgrown: a small-town Western feel. But, that comes at a cost.

"What have I gained from growth?" said Kuna junior high teacher Dale Bitner, quoted in the Idaho Statesman. "My job's more difficult, my taxes are going up, and I love the outdoors, and look what we're losing. I haven't seen anything good about growth."

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Headwaters News is a project of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.