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--> --> City Council must balance growth and diversity By Echo Fields Ashland Don Laws hit the high-priced nail on the head in his comments (August 8) on the growth vs. diversity challenge facing our community. As Don said, these issues are very difficult to handle realistically. Ashland's growth is limited by terrain, the availability of water, and our desire to live in a small town. The limitations also make us attractive - a drier climate than the Willamette Valley, mountains and forest, the amenities of big-city culture in a small community. Affluent folks can cash out a $600,000 house in California, get away from the traffic and the craziness of the Bay Area or LA, buy a fixer-upper or a "tear down" here for $250,000 and still have cash left over to make it architecturally lovely. It's perfectly rational for them to do this and there's no way that this trend is going to dissipate. But we also know the consequences: Middle- and low-income people find it increasingly difficult to live here without an inheritance, trust fund, or multiple paychecks in the household. We know that we live in one of the officially least-affordable housing markets in the United States. Rents are now steadily creeping up over $800 and mobile home park residents are fighting to save their homes. The people whose labor creates the infrastructure underpinning the "quality of life" in this idyllic place find that they cannot share the quality they've produced. As Don pointed out, we say we value diversity in our town. But diversity has to mean a community that includes young people and new families just starting out as well as empty-nested retired professionals; people who wait tables as well as people who own restaurants; carpenters who build the 6000 square foot houses as well as the people who live in them; students who attend the university as well as its President; and fire fighters who make sure that those big houses up in the interface don't burn to the ground should we get unlucky with lightning. Or should most of us middle-income and low-wage workers move north, crowd I-5 southbound every morning and then compete with the tourists for the scarce parking places? I agree with Don that it will be devilishly hard to tackle these issues. The Ashland Community Land Trust provides a beginning. We could increase the availability of land zoned for manufactured housing and mobile home parks. There are many other communities across the nation who could provide us with models, as even a quick search of the Web showed me. For example, Montgomery County, Maryland - a suburban community near our nation's capital - has had ordinances mandating the availability of truly affordable housing for nearly 30 years. I hope that the City Council will begin to examine such policies in other communities and begin to implement approaches that try to balance growth and diversity. Echo Fields is an SOU assistant professor, Ph.D. in sociology. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing