Fredericksburg is the new Aspen.
No, really. That's the skinny from Texas Monthly in a new series on
small towns. I Tweeted to TM is this wasn't some new version of
pay-to-play like that which got Tim Taliaferro kicked upstairs and sideways
out of the editor in chief office a couple of years ago. After all, the
series IS "Small Towns, Big Money." Battling for the soul of Marfa?
That's realistic. Fredericksburg the new Aspen? Thanks for the laugh.
Just
because property prices are skyrocketing doesn't mean it's the new
Aspen. There's no skiing, and while the wineries might be nice, they
ain't Californian.
Speaking of, THAT is the issue.
You got a bunch of Texans getting butt-hurt over one of their picturesque small towns being Californicated, is what it is, at least in part.
Plenty of us who grew up in the actual West know all about that.
Taos, more picturesque, smaller and poorer than Fredericksbug, sheds no tears for it.
That said, the idea that this might be a political tipping point, as Derek Thompson claims? Tosh or at least semi-tosh. The majority of California migration here is from places like the OC, the Inland Empire, San Diego exurbs to the south of that, and portions of the Central Valley. Red, or at least red-dish. Now, these folks may not be as conservative as the likes of Former Fetus Forever Fuckwad Jonathan Stickland or Gohmert Pyle, but they're conservative enough. That said, many Californicators aren't moving to Tex-ass. Per the Wall Street Journal, high property taxes (and they are, for Texans who still think they may not be, but refuse to look at an income tax). a $10K cap on state and local tax deductions, while not hitting Texas as hard as California or New York, is hitting it hard enough.
The non-Californicated part is simply a picturesque small-town version of the sharing economy world. Houses in Frederickburg are apparently being snapped up in part for Air BnB type rentals. Again, not Aspen. A few of the rich may rent out their rich places; most don't.
Besides, this is capitalism, allegedly the second Texas national religion after football, hard at work. Kwitcherbellyaching, you Hill Country Krauts!
Third, a lot of this BnB grifting, per the story, is being done by yer fellow Texans.
The real thing TM is missing, per that, is that this is just old-fashioned Texas fucking greed on steroids. I'm sorry, let me be more precise. This is just old-fashioned ANGLO Texas fucking greed on steroids. It's no accident that Fredericksburg is just a shoot and a shout down the road from Johnson City.
As for Marfa? It had its own Hispanic high desert soul long before Anglo artists and hipsters started overrunning it. Their high dudgeon over the latest interlopers is hypocritical as hell.
But, of course, that's how the Pointy Abandoned Object State™rocks.
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