Folks who move to Idaho and now want to leave (Boise: rentals, houses)

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by Clark Fork Fantast

Okay Jem, here's another member's voice. And the reason we don't have more activity here on this thread, challenging your assumptions and arguments, is, for one, that we're a small group, and for another, that we're not in the habit of pouncing on posters we disagree with. This forum is one of the more polite and congenial forums in C-D. But I did take the trouble to look at some other posts of yours, and it looks as if you can't wait to move out of the Spokane area to Western WA (not coast, but mountains). I'm not going to make assumptions about your reasons in connection with your assessment of NID--that would probably constitute an ad hominem argument--so I will just conclude that you're somehow fed up with the entire area and feel a need to vent. Sage expresses the view that I believe most of us who have a connection to NID hold.

Actually he/she says he/she lives in a small town about two hours outside of Spokane which of course makes him/her an expert on Spokane and northern Idaho.
Or just a bored malcontent.
I will be in Newport today and dodging bullets from all of the gang activity which the town is teeming with, according to him. Skeered!!!

[LionFamily]

Since not enough people responded to make Jem happy, I'll add my two cents:

IMO, Sage was spot on with his analysis of the area.

IMO, Clark Fork was spot on with her analysis of why people have hesitated to respond.

In summary, Jem, I think you're wronger than wrong. And normally I would refrain from being so rude. Apparently, that's what you were looking for, though.

[Keim]

Geez, LionFamily, I thought I was spot on, too!

[cocaseco]

Originally Posted by jem22

So far only three members, yourself included, have responded to my post; that hardly constitutes “several,” although now that a mod has reacted defensively to it more may very well follow suit. If you’ll revisit my post, you’ll note I never claim there is no rural habitat to be found in your region, only that there isn’t much about it I personally consider particularly rural in the authentic sense. Nothing definitive here. You seem to be suggesting I can’t posit such a position unless I’m also a land use/zoning professional. Absurd.

The fact you can drive certain times of the night with noticeably less traffic only demonstrates that less people drive at night. I’ve driven stretches of 1-5 in densely populated King County at 2:30am and noticed the same phenomena. Cougar, bear, and such regularly ventured into suburbia and coyote are still a SeaTac mainstay. You cite the number of people per square mile but I question how much of that land is actually usable for year round habitation or even available for purchase, as much of it is likely state land.

To be clear, I’m not dismissing the fact your property may be zoned rural. If that’s all you got out of my post you missed a salient point. Part of my argument is making the distinction between what a city slicker from somewhere like Los Angeles may perceive as rural as opposed to someone from a less urbane environment. I find it amusing, for example, that a person living in a Post Falls tract home can refer to the experience as “laid-back,” and “country.” Everything is relative.

Add me as another. I thought your generalizations were way off base. To suggest that only city people drive fast is absurd. To say that there is (essentially) no rural areas left in the panhandle is even more so. You use a big word "authentic" to suggest some special designation that apparently only you know. Rural is rural and we all know what it means with or without being authentic to you. I think its this inflated distinction of rural which is kind of pompous and off putting at the same time.

If one person says it, it's an opinion, two and its a movement, three and its truth.

[LionFamily]

Opps!

Keim is spot on, too!

[Cnynrat]

Originally Posted by LionFamily

Since not enough people responded to make Jem happy, I'll add my two cents:

IMO, Sage was spot on with his analysis of the area.

IMO, Clark Fork was spot on with her analysis of why people have hesitated to respond.

In summary, Jem, I think you're wronger than wrong. And normally I would refrain from being so rude. Apparently, that's what you were looking for, though.

I agree with all this 100%.

Does that make 4?

[elousv]

I am all for declaring NID completely FULL. Yup, nuthin but skinheads and skyscrapers.. oh and taters, lots and lots o' taters. Swimmin in taters!

[jem22]

Originally Posted by banjomike

..when a rural area grips the romantic imagination of the public strongly enough for any reason, rurality can vanish very quickly and become an essentially urban place that only has more physical separation between neighbors than a city.

Excellent analysis. It’s this very idealization of N. Idaho in the mind of the collective that renders her vulnerable to a similar urbanized fate of regions commercialized before her. The phenomenon is set in motion long before starry-eyed refugees ever set foot on Idaho soil, thanks in part to marketers who paint an unrealistically rosy picture of what’s left of her rural lifestyle. I remember a colleague determined to flee the city; a worthy endeavor, of course, but when I asked him why he chose Idaho, he replied, “Because it’s Idaho!”

As a critically thinking individualist I try to avoid living in places dominated by people who are inherent followers, people who move somewhere because it ranks high on the cool scale. Unfortunately, I’ve found a disturbing percentage of people moving to N. Idaho are doing so “because it’s Idaho,” and not because it offers an anything it's neighboring states don't.

Ultimately, it isn’t land use or zoning that define the rural makeup of a place, it’s the people who make up the largest demographic and/or hold political sway.

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by jem22

As a critically thinking individualist....

A bit pompous, don't you think? So I take it we're safe from the likes of critically thinking individualists?

[Sandpointian]

Jem22,

I am sure you recognize that it mpossible to understand what is truly meant by rural as the term sits on a continuum. I think that to be rural a place needs
* small pop density
* larger tracts of land (size varies by region)
* significant agricultural component to the economy
* much of pop off the grid
* a pop that takes only infrequent trips to the nearby city
* most of County living outside of city limits
* most local travel on local or state roads

If you agree with the above, then perhaps 90% of arable NID is rural.

Of course those living in the cities of Moscow, CDA, Moscow, Sandpoint, and Bonners Ferry are not rural. But it does mean that within 10 minutes of any point in those cities (15 for CDA) means going from a small city to a completely rural setting.

As far as rural in the romantics' eyes, well, that depends on one's experience. Rural will be different Oklahoma Panhandle vs. Idaho Pandlehandle as the ecology and topographies are so different. However, I would venture that rural folks in each area will have much in common (as would small city folks in areas with similar environs) than I would with them.

So really...there is no such thing as one definition of rural, so any argument that pursues such an aim is kind of pointless. If you remove the folks living in the cities of NID, county dwellers in NID average about 12 /square mile and perhaps 50/sq mile if we remove the uninhabitable parts which is still in top 10 were NID a state if you do the same calculation for each state. Not the "ruralist," but pretty darn rural.

Given that I live in the city of Sandpoint, I would freely admit to not living the rural lifestyle. But I tell you, I am glad most of NID remains quite rural, that the five months of our Farmer's market is pure NID goodness, and that I count among my friends goat farmers, veggie farmers, and a lamb herder. If that means we in NID are "rural" or not, I guess it does not really matter to me so long as I get to live where I live...

S.