The housing issue has become a pressing concern throughout the region, where necessity becomes the mother of invention as seen in varied approaches striving to address a growing community crisis.
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Author Archives: Paul Andersen
Paul Andersen has lived in the valley for 40 years and was a reporter, editor and regular contributor to The Aspen Times. He has authored 15 books about the region. Before reporting on the series "In search of community," he last wrote for Aspen Journalism in 2014, penning stories on environment and history.
Housing: Where social justice confronts economics
“This is a social justice issue when you have people traveling long distances and leaving children to fend for themselves. It is wrong for our region. Affordable housing is the underpinning of our success as a community, long term.”
Building livable communities, one place at a time
Communities are a physical manifestation of times and places where “people come and settle together and together reflect a physical and economic manifestation of a place. Communities are our highest form of manifesting what’s best about us: art, music, culture, architecture and belonging.”
Along the Colorado River: Where community blossoms and the economy grows
These places may be little known to much of the upper Roaring Fork Valley, but for so many who make its economy hum, it’s where they own homes, raise families, build dreams, struggle with life, and rush back and forth for employment each workday on congested highways.
The battle for the Aspen Idea: Community or commodity?
“Paepcke’s experiment in idiosyncratic enlightened capitalism proved to be a pivotal moment in the evolution of tourism in the 20th-century West, a bridge between a more elitist past and a future of mass culture.”
Post-war rise of skiing and culture creates both opportunity and rift
“Some of the objections for Aspen having a celebration each year are the lack of housing, the shortage of dining space for more than ordinary crowds, disrupting the free and easy life of some few Aspenites, and generally cluttering up the streets and shops with extra people, some of them with money to spend.”
During Aspen’s Quiet Years, a challenged but cohesive community takes hold
“The lights of Aspen began to dim and softly flicker for almost 50 years. Still, the lights never went out. These were the years between prospecting and prosperity, … Aspen’s only future lay in its past. All of its dreams were trapped in its memories of yesterday.”
Aspen’s embattled community first experienced by the Utes, then came the silver crash
Aspen’s community has proved resilient despite dramatic changes that have long inflamed a cathartic sense of loss. Aspenites are contentious about change because change alters the experience that first gave them a rich sense of place. A first love of Aspen leaves a deep emotional imprint.
Holiday potlucks and food pantries nourish scents of community
“This dinner was for lifties, ski instructors and service workers who have come into Aspen from Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Peru and other faraway places,” said chapel minister Nicholas Vesey, who led a raucous caroling session after a turkey dinner with all the fixings. “We wanted to give them a good Christmas.”
Regionalism evolves as a uniting force from Aspen to Parachute
This community is contiguous but divided, homogenous but diverse, connected yet fractured. This community is complex and often at odds with itself over its past, its present and especially its future. It contains microcommunities delineated by overlaps and separations, yet strongly influenced socioeconomically by Aspen and Snowmass.