Possible Move to Malmstrom AFB (Great Falls: living, stores, food)
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No, there are no Jewish bakeries or delicatessens in GF, nor, as far as I know, in Montana, as a whole.
As far as I know, the nearest Jewish bakery and delicatessen (as well as a kosher butcher) to Montana is in Calgary, Alberta.
Now I'm wondering if there's enough demand that this might be an opportunity for someone in MT. Probably not enough of a Jewish community by itself, but if prices can be kept reasonably competitive, my experience is that kosher food can win on quality and can attract a wider audience. What with Cascade County ditching some of their more useless regulations, now would be the time to look into it.
We haven't seen the OP in a while, but I wonder what he likes to eat?
Um... expressing a contrary or negative opinion is not "setting the record straight". I personally hate Missoula and Hamilton and Kalispell, and have no liking for that entire area, but many other people love it, for precisely the very reasons I hate it; me, I'd rather live in Browning!!
Great Falls is no different. Many things I like about it are the same things you dislike, and v.v. Other folks will feel the same as you or me, for the same or different reasons. It's fine to set out why you and I like or dislike a place, but "there's no Starbucks in GtF" is not the same as saying "GtF sucks because there's no Starbucks". (I dunno if there is or not, but it makes a good typical example.)
(Actually, I thought your long post did a fair job of delineating what GtF has and hasn't. Either of which could be great or horrible features to someone else. To me, the mark of the urban devil is when a town's businesses are concentrated in malls and chain stores! A situation GtF has been slow to arrive at. )
Last edited by ElkHunter; 09-08-2010 at 11:46 AM..
Reason: Removed Quote as orphaned.
Um... expressing a contrary or negative opinion is not "setting the record straight".
Yes it is. As I see it. It's MY truth. If people can't tell it's my opinion, then they're not too swift on the uptake. I see people word things like that all the time in all the forums. I know those things must be obviously true... for that person.
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It's fine to set out why you and I like or dislike a place, but "there's no Starbucks in GtF" is not the same as saying "GtF sucks because there's no Starbucks".
There is. The one in Barnes & Noble is better than the one on 10th Avenue. Again, even if it was worded that way, so what? Get over it... I've seen posts like that about Wisconsin. So what? We tell them why they're wrong and move on. ...... IMO, the only reason to become oversensitive about that is if you have the feeling it may be true....
Quote:
(Actually, I thought your long post did a fair job of delineating what GtF has and hasn't. Either of which could be great or horrible features to someone else. To me, the mark of the urban devil is when a town's businesses are concentrated in malls and chain stores! A situation GtF has been slow to arrive at. )
Um.... why should a business not expect to pay its own way? Why should the city do that for it?? Making the business climate friendly with low taxes and reduced fees/paperwork is the city's job, but offering cash incentives or guaranteed contracts or the like is not (that's money taken directly out of taxpayers' pockets, which will require increased taxes on everyone to make up), and will never build long-term stable industry.
BTW Cascade County has been actively reducing its regulations to get rid of pointless micromanagement rules, which is a good thing for business.
Reziac: I did state that Cascade County was becoming more business friendly but I didn't emphasize it. I think its a good thing as well. However, "growth paying their own way" is a good idea on paper until people realize that it prevents major facilities from considering a location.
If a business takes a piece of raw land and improves it by building a nice office building or factory, why go to a place where they have to pay property taxes from Day 1? There's no geographical preference towards Great Falls for anything other than military and easy access to Canada. That can be found in WA, ND, MN, MI, IN, OH, PA, NY, NH, VT, and ME. If other towns are giving incentives to bring businesses in, your town is stupid not to follow suit. Now there is a difference between an incentive (no property tax for 5 years) and giving it away (no property tax for 50 years) and cities shouldn't give away things and be smart in what businesses they attract.
Nobody wants to be the buggy whip capital of the world but who wouldn't mind being the wind turbine capital of the US? Westminster, CO won this BTW and really didn't give up that much for it. The facility was a leftover from the dot.com bust and would have sat vacant had not Vestas come in with a nice incentive package. It also helped that the Pueblo steel mills were about 100 miles away and the state is notoriously non-union unlike CA, PA and MN.
Anti-growth policies are great for retirees and the local "Boss Hogg" because nothing ever changes. Younger people and college educated employees are forced to leave as new business is stiffled and resulting wages are stagnant. Barring a resource boom (ie. Sidney) or an influx of Gov't spending, no jobs are created.
(Actually, I thought your long post did a fair job of delineating what GtF has and hasn't. Either of which could be great or horrible features to someone else. To me, the mark of the urban devil is when a town's businesses are concentrated in malls and chain stores! A situation GtF has been slow to arrive at. )
I remember when GF didn't even have a Wal-Mart! The first time I recalled going to a Wal-Mart was in Colorado. Once I had been in it, I shrugged and had a "so what" attitude about it. Just another K-Mart type store. Then Wal-Mart came in and built right across from the oil refinery! Yuck!
Interesting to hear that Blockbuster closed. I remember when that was being built. It went up fast! I went on a short vacation, and when we came back, it was up. A Blockbuster near me also recently closed, but I shed no tears for it. The prices are expensive, and the selection is poor. I always loved Hastings, and greatly miss that store. Glad to hear that it is still around.
Is the Holiday Village Mall still half empty? The last time I was there, it was right after Thanksgiving 2002 (I think), and there seemed to be a fair number of empty stores.
Ah, the Orange Julius. Haven't seen one of those in a long time. I also liked going to The Sting since they had arcade machines. I didn't get to play them, but I would watch other people play. I still need to watch that movie, as well.
Another thing to check out around GF is Giant Springs. Paris Gibson Park is also nice.
Anti-growth policies are great for retirees and the local "Boss Hogg" because nothing ever changes. Younger people and college educated employees are forced to leave as new business is stiffled and resulting wages are stagnant. Barring a resource boom (ie. Sidney) or an influx of Gov't spending, no jobs are created.
This assumes that "growth" is always good and always brings quality jobs (by which I mean careers, not part-time or dead-end service jobs). Great Falls has been something of an anomaly in that it has generally been stable rather than growthy.
Urban growth brings so many problems with it that it is truly not worth it. It sucks skilled people out of smaller towns, in the often-vain hope of better wages in the big city, and that in turn helps kill those smaller communities. It brings in chainstores like Walmart which in turn kills off local business -- and the people who'd been running their own formerly-successful business for years wind up doing part-time work as Walmart door-greeters just to make ends meet (as do many of their former local employees). It encourages real estate spikes that drive prices up beyond the reach of ordinary working folks, and you wind up with big tracts of ticky-tacky houses and condos that the contractor skimped on to maximize his quick profits. It drives up the cost of local infrastructure while making the existing taxpayers foot the bill (how is that fair when they get no benefit from it?) Ultimately you wind up with a culture of part-time or dead-end jobs rather than careers, and service jobs that are dependent on other people's money rather than on selling a physical product.
Until the export balance swings back to the U.S. being an exporter rather than an importer (and if you think it's otherwise, look for the "Made In USA" labels at Walmart... go on, I'll wait) this is how it will be, everywhere that attempts "growth" rather than maintaining stability.
Look at Bozeman or Kalispell and tell me I'm wrong.
Billings still has a hard good to sell -- all that nearby oil and coal, plus the underlying stability of eastern MT ranching. So it can manage legitimate growth, if it does so slowly enough not to get caught in a boom/bust cycle. Great Falls is relatively stable on the strength of the airbase and farming and ranching (which I agree, do not provide "growth"), but unless your new industry makes and sells a hard good (and isn't something ephemeral like "tourism" or "tech support" -- that latter invariably a ripoff to local taxpayers, I should add, having followed the career of EDS and others) it's not growth, it's cancer.
I've seen posts like that about Wisconsin. So what? We tell them why they're wrong and move on. ...... IMO, the only reason to become oversensitive about that is if you have the feeling it may be true....
Methinks you might be in for an eye-opener once you're resettled in LaCrosse, or wherever in Wisconsin you wind up... either that, or a long long road playing defense.
Methinks you might be in for an eye-opener once you're resettled in LaCrosse, or wherever in Wisconsin you wind up... either that, or a long long road playing defense.
I spent 8 years in GTF. I have base privileges. (retired military). We liked it there.
We bought a house on 4th Ave. S., put a shed in the back yard for my tools and such, and lived quite well.
I wouldn't mind going back, if the jobs were available, and I could find a 5 to 10 acre place out of town but close enough for a good commute.
Kalispell? somebody mentioned that place, I think using it as a bad example. I agree. I grew up there, and no way would I ever go back for more than a visit! Too much growth, and no infrastructure to support it! How long can they go on, serving hamburgers to each other, and selling clothes to each other? It was a great place to grow up back in the 1950s, but I would not live there now.
Billings or Great Falls for me, thanks anyway.
Of course, Billings is an "overgrown cowtown with delusions of grandeur", but I can live with that.
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(I dunno if there is or not, but it makes a good typical example.)
...... IMO, the only reason to become oversensitive about that is if you have the feeling it may be true....
