Allard: Rise and fall of tourist towns

The following appeared in Skiing History: “1990 Inevitable ‘Destruction’ Of Ski Towns”

Futurist August St. John, a professor of future studies at Long Island University, has developed a theory on the life and death of tourist towns, which he says go through five stages: Welcome, Development, Resentment, Confrontation, and finally, Destruction. 

By “destruction,” St. John doesn’t mean a physical catastrophe but the ruin or disappearance — as growth overwhelms a resort area — of the things that were the original attractions: neighborliness and sense of community, a rural landscape, small-town atmosphere, friendliness, low traffic, and low taxes.

One, then, might ask of those who now call themselves Aspen locals, how many have contributed to this phenomenon since, say, 1980 (the Reagan presidency)?

Art Allard

Aspen