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You're competing with one percenters from NYC, Boston, CT, NJ, etc. The same reason purchase prices of real estate is all out of whack with the local economy.
Indeed. That's pretty much my answer. VT is not of, by, and for Vermonters any more. Refugees flooded across the unguarded border and brought their profligate ways with them. Ruined, as all of northern New England has been by lunatics from the south and SW. Pity.
Indeed. That's pretty much my answer. VT is not of, by, and for Vermonters any more. Refugees flooded across the unguarded border and brought their profligate ways with them. Ruined, as all of northern New England has been by lunatics from the south and SW. Pity.
The Vermont economy would sink without the 15% vacation home ownership and all the money the tourist industry injects into the state. All those expensive vacation homes are paying the commercial Act 68 state school tax rate with no means testing like Vermont residents get. They're funding your school system. Their sales and meals tax dollars are funding a big chunk of the state budget. Their spending creates tens of thousands of jobs. Without that money, Vermont would be a northern version of West Virginia.
The Vermont economy would sink without the 15% vacation home ownership and all the money the tourist industry injects into the state. All those expensive vacation homes are paying the commercial Act 68 state school tax rate with no means testing like Vermont residents get. They're funding your school system. Their sales and meals tax dollars are funding a big chunk of the state budget. Their spending creates tens of thousands of jobs. Without that money, Vermont would be a northern version of West Virginia.
A reminder that the income from tourism angle goes back to at least the 1850s in Vermont. For years, Stowe tried to compete with the Mt. Washington area for the wealthy Bostonian and Portland summer tourism trade. It had a huge 200+ room hotel on main street, a halfway house and excursions to the summit of Mansfield, and ultimately a hotel on the summit. Other areas of the state had smaller ventures.
After the main hotel burned in the 1890s, lumbering and industry was more prevalent for a few years, but the (died in the wool Republican) legislatures of the 1920s and 1930s decided to actively promote tourism as an industry. The most visible component of that for many was the state-sponsored "Vermont Life" magazine, full of gorgeous landscapes and feel-good character studies. Vermonters might have prided themselves for being shown in such a positive light, but the target audience was ALWAYS the rich in southern New England cities and NYC.
The next push, and perhaps the biggest game changer, was an outgrowth of that effort AND Federally mandated re-apportionment of the balance of power in the state legislature. People drawn into the state, in large part by the bucolic paradise marketing, only found real work in the Chittenden county area. With reapportionment, they and their representatives became the new power block.
That group then gambled all-in, with Act 250. Boom! Suddenly, appearances trumped industry and growth. The attitude attracted more similarly thinking outsiders, and the current iteration of Vermont was born.
Had "Vermont Life" never been published, Vermont would be a very different state.
The Vermont economy would sink without the 15% vacation home ownership and all the money the tourist industry injects into the state. All those expensive vacation homes are paying the commercial Act 68 state school tax rate with no means testing like Vermont residents get. They're funding your school system. Their sales and meals tax dollars are funding a big chunk of the state budget. Their spending creates tens of thousands of jobs. Without that money, Vermont would be a northern version of West Virginia.
I would say it's hurt us more than it helps us. The tax revenue from the expensive homes doesn't really do people any good when they can't afford a home of their own anymore because of the skyrocketing prices completely out of sync with local incomes. And it feeds on itself. The land is too valuable and expensive for the farms to continue so one by one they get sold as the older farmers retire. Opening up more land for development by rich people from out of state, adding to the problem. And then we get to the current point of wealthy transplants outnumbering real locals. It might shock you but some of us would actually prefer VT remained a state of mostly farmers instead of bringing in tourism. It may be true few were well off in terms of money but the level of freedom and independence made up for it. VT once had an economy that wasn't really cash based in the hill towns. It worked though, unlike the abject failure mainstream America is.
As Governor Aiken pointed out during the Depression, "the fact remains that here we are, most of us healthy and well-nourished, comfortably warm and self-supporting—‘statistically bankrupt,’ . . . but actually solvent."
I would say it's hurt us more than it helps us. The tax revenue from the expensive homes doesn't really do people any good when they can't afford a home of their own anymore because of the skyrocketing prices completely out of sync with local incomes. And it feeds on itself. The land is too valuable and expensive for the farms to continue so one by one they get sold as the older farmers retire. Opening up more land for development by rich people from out of state, adding to the problem. And then we get to the current point of wealthy transplants outnumbering real locals. It might shock you but some of us would actually prefer VT remained a state of mostly farmers instead of bringing in tourism. It may be true few were well off in terms of money but the level of freedom and independence made up for it. VT once had an economy that wasn't really cash based in the hill towns. It worked though, unlike the abject failure mainstream America is.
As Governor Aiken pointed out during the Depression, "the fact remains that here we are, most of us healthy and well-nourished, comfortably warm and self-supporting—‘statistically bankrupt,’ . . . but actually solvent."
You couldn't say that anymore.
So you're going to support 623,000 people farming rocks?
The Vermont problem is that the mill towns that provided the manufacturing jobs all died. Hardly unique to Vermont. All that remains are bathtub meth labs and opiate zombies. Vermont's #1 export is the top 10% of every High School graduating class.
A reminder that the income from tourism angle goes back to at least the 1850s in Vermont. For years, Stowe tried to compete with the Mt. Washington area for the wealthy Bostonian and Portland summer tourism trade. It had a huge 200+ room hotel on main street, a halfway house and excursions to the summit of Mansfield, and ultimately a hotel on the summit. Other areas of the state had smaller ventures.
After the main hotel burned in the 1890s, lumbering and industry was more prevalent for a few years, but the (died in the wool Republican) legislatures of the 1920s and 1930s decided to actively promote tourism as an industry. The most visible component of that for many was the state-sponsored "Vermont Life" magazine, full of gorgeous landscapes and feel-good character studies. Vermonters might have prided themselves for being shown in such a positive light, but the target audience was ALWAYS the rich in southern New England cities and NYC.
The next push, and perhaps the biggest game changer, was an outgrowth of that effort AND Federally mandated re-apportionment of the balance of power in the state legislature. People drawn into the state, in large part by the bucolic paradise marketing, only found real work in the Chittenden county area. With reapportionment, they and their representatives became the new power block.
That group then gambled all-in, with Act 250. Boom! Suddenly, appearances trumped industry and growth. The attitude attracted more similarly thinking outsiders, and the current iteration of Vermont was born.
Had "Vermont Life" never been published, Vermont would be a very different state.
Another issue 100 years ago or so was clear-cutting of the forests by the lumber industry. That led to a lot of flooding-including the major flood of 1927 and also 1938. Yeah, Vermont still floods (Can you say, "Irene"?) but it is nothing to what it was when the forests were clear-cut. Also, the lumber industry basically wiped out the deer population in the state. The deer that we have now are because the state "imported" 17 white tailed deer from New York in 1878. Also the lumber industry was polluting the rivers & streams with sawdust. You can imagine what that did to the fish. So, the state decide to regulate things before this state became a wasteland. I, for one, am glad they did.
FYI, I did part of my undergraduate Honor's Thesis on this.
So you're going to support 623,000 people farming rocks?
The Vermont problem is that the mill towns that provided the manufacturing jobs all died. Hardly unique to Vermont. All that remains are bathtub meth labs and opiate zombies. Vermont's #1 export is the top 10% of every High School graduating class.
Well isn't it funny that all the beautiful village buildings and old farmhouses all the transplants like so much came out of an economy and society centered around farming "rocks" as you say. Your perception of how VT was in the past is not accurate.
The population almost doubled from the 1960's onwards due to people relocating here. The population levels we had from the Civil War onward were basically sustainable with an agricultural economy. What we have now is not sustainable without outside inputs in terms of food and energy. We didn't have that constant growth that has created the problems in most of this country (environmental, economic, social). There were mills in some towns obviously which provided some cash income for farmers selling products like wool or people with timber and their employees lived off what they earned there. I know some transplants have the condescending attitude like yours that they've somehow "saved" Vermonters by moving in, sending real estate prices through the roof, developing resorts on our mountainsides, and stuffing Chittenden County full of subdivisions, in the process trying to reduce us to mere servants of theirs in various service jobs but we don't see it that way. We didn't have the current level of drug abuse prior to the mass influx of people and transformation of the economy. All I'm seeing is we've brought all the same miserable problems of the rest of America into our state that was once largely free of those problems. Which tend to stem from an excessive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small percent of the population, who intentionally or unintentionally deprive the rest of the population of the ability to have affordable housing, etc. My grandparents and every preceding generation weren't rich but they were always well fed, warm, owned their homes free and clear of any loan, and never answered a single day of their lives to a "boss" telling them what to do. That was of far greater value than low-wage jobs at a ski resort or walmart.
Another issue 100 years ago or so was clear-cutting of the forests by the lumber industry. That led to a lot of flooding-including the major flood of 1927 and also 1938. Yeah, Vermont still floods (Can you say, "Irene"?) but it is nothing to what it was when the forests were clear-cut. Also, the lumber industry basically wiped out the deer population in the state. The deer that we have now are because the state "imported" 17 white tailed deer from New York in 1878. Also the lumber industry was polluting the rivers & streams with sawdust. You can imagine what that did to the fish. So, the state decide to regulate things before this state became a wasteland. I, for one, am glad they did.
FYI, I did part of my undergraduate Honor's Thesis on this.
Cat
I really regret that I have to challenge you on this, but I lived in the area affected, have historical photos, wrote a book, and have made presentations to a historical society on that period. I literally have the most historical data on the dam at Bolton Falls of anyone in existence. If you did part of your thesis on this, you may have referenced some of my work, or that of one of my sources, like Bill Gove or B. Lindner.
The flood of 1927 that devastated Waterbury came primarily from the Black River and upper Winooski watersheds. The clear cutting on Hunger Mountain and the Worcester Mtn range had minimal effect on direct flooding in that town, as the Waterbury/Little River enters the Winooski about a mile downstream. It did add to the problem, but only incrementally.
In point of fact, while Waterbury was isolated from Montpelier and Burlington because of the flood damage, the road from Stowe, across Gold Brook and the lumbering area and another road through one of the notches in the Jericho area were passable immediately after the flood. I know this both from historical sources and because my grandfather drove them from Jeffersonville and took photos of the destroyed dam as soon as the flood waters had receded and before clean-up efforts had started. I also have photos of Hunger Mountain from that time showing the small patches of clear-cutting.
The reason Irene wasn't another flood of 1927 was less because of the difference in forestation and more because of flood control dams upstream on the Black, and the Waterbury dam, which eliminated almost ALL backpressure from the Waterbury/Little River. Even so, the water levels in Waterbury village were only about ten feet lower in Irene than 1927, and had the Waterbury dam not been in place, could have matched or possibly surpassed the 1927 levels. Compared to 1927, Irene was different - in that a LOT more water came from the Mad River watershed - which is almost fully forested. Nobody ever put a flood control dam on the Mad. You can thank environmental sensitivity in part for the Irene damage in Waterbury.
You make an understandable error thinking that the bulk of denudation of trees in Vermont was from lumbering and clearcutting. However, the primary loss was from agriculture and early settlers. The hopeful farmers had to clear land for fields, and they cut the trees, burned most of them, and sold the potash, which was valuable and more easily shipped. Once the fields were established, a primary crop for a while was sheep. Sheep will strip land and are far more aggressive grazers than cattle. That is why many of the photos of Vermont from the late 1800s show fields and pastures with almost no overgrowth.
In Vermont, the Winooski River was only barely suitable for floating logs at best, with log jams occurring at the rocks at Bolton Gorge. The river outlet is Lake Champlain, which meant loading the lumber processed in Burlington and then shipping it at considerable expense either north or south. Large projects of clear cuttig were not practical. The Northeast Kingdom in Vermont and (primarily) northwest New Hampshire had a far larger lumbering presence - massive in comparison. Logs were initially floated on the Connecticut in a direct route, and then the railroads took over.
Early railroads likely had as much or more effect on forest in Vermont than lumbering. Trees were needed for railroad ties, and the early inefficient engines burned cords and cords of wood. Farmers could strip almost all wood near a railroad and get extra income.
Sawdust in the rivers??? Sawdust was sold for animal bedding and other uses. The original thundermills might have had sawdust in the brooks, but most of those died early on. In the late 1800s, sawmills in Vermont were steam powered and far enough away from waterways that flooding was unlikely to interrupt operations.
The lumber industry eliminated the deer??? Go ahead and pull the other one. The damage deer do to forests is eating bark in the deeryards during winter when forage isn't readily available. Now what is it that deer do to crops like corn and other row crops? The farmers killed and ate the deer to protect crops. Along the way, they also finished off the bear and moose in the area. Bucolic farming has a dark side.
So what did cause the flooding in Waterbury in 1927 and Irene? Without proper upstream flood control, the flow of water through the gorge at Bolton, just above the dam, is a natural choke point for the river. It is narrow and solid rock that rises 30 feet or more on either side. In a flood, the water backs up from it onto (wait for it...) the flood plain. If it gets above a certain level it washes down the railroad cut beside the gorge, but that cut is high enough that it is not a natural preventative sluiceway. Waterbury village was built on the floodplain, pure and simple. The original business block on Stowe Street was built with that in mind, but the railroad station and need to expand brought commerce down bank hill.
Richmond had LESS damage because of the gate effect of the gorge at Bolton, and it undoubtedly saved the big mill in the city of Winooski, although the highway/streetcar bridge in front of it was washed away.
Oh yeah, you do know that the ski trails were logged to start the state ski industry in one of the final logging episodes in Stowe? Perry Merrill orchestrated that.
I also have photos of the flooding of the Lamoille in 1927 and other floods, where much of the damage was to the railroad embankments.
The 1938 storm was more of an issue for southern New England. IIRC, Katharine Hepburn was caught up in it and had a quite a scare at her home in Connecticut.
As I write, this area is in a flood alert, and the Wilson Dam is releasing millions of gallons of water a second to limit flooding damage along the Tennessee River. Floods are reality checks that we need to be smart when dealing with nature, and dams save lives.
Well isn't it funny that all the beautiful village buildings and old farmhouses all the transplants like so much came out of an economy and society centered around farming "rocks" as you say. Your perception of how VT was in the past is not accurate.
The population almost doubled from the 1960's onwards due to people relocating here. The population levels we had from the Civil War onward were basically sustainable with an agricultural economy. What we have now is not sustainable without outside inputs in terms of food and energy. We didn't have that constant growth that has created the problems in most of this country (environmental, economic, social). There were mills in some towns obviously which provided some cash income for farmers selling products like wool or people with timber and their employees lived off what they earned there. I know some transplants have the condescending attitude like yours that they've somehow "saved" Vermonters by moving in, sending real estate prices through the roof, developing resorts on our mountainsides, and stuffing Chittenden County full of subdivisions, in the process trying to reduce us to mere servants of theirs in various service jobs but we don't see it that way. We didn't have the current level of drug abuse prior to the mass influx of people and transformation of the economy. All I'm seeing is we've brought all the same miserable problems of the rest of America into our state that was once largely free of those problems. Which tend to stem from an excessive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small percent of the population, who intentionally or unintentionally deprive the rest of the population of the ability to have affordable housing, etc. My grandparents and every preceding generation weren't rich but they were always well fed, warm, owned their homes free and clear of any loan, and never answered a single day of their lives to a "boss" telling them what to do. That was of far greater value than low-wage jobs at a ski resort or walmart.
This is totally delusional. Vermont isn't nationally competitive in agriculture. The dairy business is down to 700 farms, a 27% drop since 2010. Nobody wants a 365 day per year 12 hour day business that barely does better than break even. There's no economy of scale. Any other kind of agriculture is even less competitive. Walmart isn't going to stock Vermont agriculture products at 3x the price that won't sell and Vermonters largely shop in those big box stores where almost nothing comes from Vermont. With an agrarian economy, you're putting Vermont household income levels incredibly low. There would be no tax revenue to fund infrastructure. Close the public schools. The roads would decay back to the mud bogs of the Civil War era you seem to pine for. Anyone with talent would flee to places with more economic opportunity. That already happens but it would be magnified if you rolled Vermont back to the agrarian dark ages.
Vermont could only wish it had a wealth and income stratification problem. There simply aren't the opportunities in the state outside of Chittenden County to create wealth.
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The farmers killed and ate the deer to protect crops. Along the way, they also finished off the bear and moose in the area. Bucolic farming has a dark side.
