Once Boise was a bit like Mayberry of the Andy Griffith show. One knew all of one’s neighbors, where citizens respected the police and weren’t afraid to leave the doors unlocked. You could leave your keys in the ignition overnight and your car would
still be there in the morning. Children weren’t molested, stabbings were only in places like big cities in California. You could launch a boat at Luck Peak and not have to pay, float the Boise river and enjoy a cold beer.

Yes at one time I could joked that I lived in Boise-Mayberry RFD where you could turn back time on modern day life. Then sometime in the 1990’s a mass migration occurred , people from the west coast (INSURGENTS) moved to Boise because of the life style described above.

They brought all their friends and family, “cheap homes!” they shouted and nice friendly natives. The Boise I remember is gone, replaced with expensive homes, user fee’s, higher
taxes, traffic congestion, more crime , more murders, road rage, graffiti, on and on. I’d like to rename our great state to reflect it’s true identity, “IDAFORNIA”.

Yes I’m bitter, I’m a west coaster who moved here when Boise was in a depressed economy (early 1980’s), I was willing to sacrifice my much higher paying job to buy a smaller less expensive home and start and raise a family. I left California only to see Boise become much of what I fled from. Where will the next Mayberry be?

JNH
Born a Texan, raised a Californian, living as an Idahoan.

Well phrased, Fraz. Keep up the good work.

Johnnie Harris also did some nice explaining of the changes. But a phrase in his final sentence brings up a point that has bothered me:
“I left California only to see Boise become much of what I fled from.”
Unfortunately, that’s what a few thousand others are going to realize eventually — They didn’t leave L.A. (or San Diego or San Jose or wherever), they brought it with them.
The fled because of traffic, crime, pollution, outlandish home prices, etc. Now those things are increasing rapidly throughout BoiseNampaCaldwellEagleStarKuna and other cities, towns and former farms in the region.
I’m a newcomer myself — only been here about 40 years. But I moved here from Arizona to take a job vacated by someone who moved from here to Arizona. I bought a house built in 1900-1917 according to assorted records.
When Boiseopolis finally drove me out, I move to Emmett, into a house built an estimated 30 to 35 years ago.
Now, if there were some way to say people could only move here when an equivalent number of people move out, and no more houses could be built, we could welcome the newcomers without crowding ourselves to death.
Maybe add to that law that people who move here have to become Idahoans — slow down, chat with people, be nice to everybody you meet in the stores, on the sidewalks and on the roads, enjoy the presence of wildlife, farms, ranches etc. instead of complaining about them and trying to drive them out.
Hey, it could remain Idaho!
— gp

Sad to say it’s a universal problem with domino effect implicaitons. I remember interviews when I was a Statesman reporter in the mid 60s with the Ada County planning and zoning director who warned about expensive extensions of sewer and water lines and problems with pollution caused by septic tanks in the outer suburbs. Also, urban sprawl necessitates expansion of roads. In the Twin Cities (Mini-SOHta), there is an explosion of new condo development in the inner cities.

Like some of you, I’m not a Boise native, having moved here in the 70’s from Illinois. I arrived when Boise was becoming a wasteland with the population shrinking. I like to think I helped stabilize the equation.

I, too, chaff at the increases in all things we formerly enjoyed (traffic, taxes, number of people, etc.), but I have to keep reminding myself that one of the benefits of living in the U.S. (at least one of the few left) is the freedom to move where we wish. I just wish that so many of the newest arrivals didn’t bring their rudeness and criminal activity with them. And, did anybody see the letter to the editor in yesterday’s Statesman from the guy chastising those Eagle residents suing the state for allowing flooding of their properties. He stated so aptly they they were probably very smug that they obtained some great riverfront property from the dumb Idahoans, but they’re aren’t smiling now. Maybe they’re realizing Idahoans used that property to fish and hunt on, but were too smart to live there.

As a long-time neighborhood activitist in one of Boise’s lower-income neighborhoods, we have been doubly impacted by out-of-staters buying up our starter homes and turning them into rentals to make a fast buck, as well as developers scalping our neighborhood to place skinny row houses in every nook and crany they can find.

Unfortunately, I see no relief until our local governments stop bickering and come up with a comprehensive land use policy for the Valley and don’t grant every developer an exception to the requirements they (government) have imposed.

I saw what happened in the sprawling suburbs of my native New Jersey .. awful things. Here in Pocatello we have an anti-growth government. You might want to elect one in Boise.

Why can’t we limit growth as Boulder and Portland do. Have minimum lot sizes, limit numbers of unrelated people per house, stop subsidizing large families with tax breaks, pay for schools with sales taxes. We can save our valley if we try. When it is gone it is lost forever.

EDITOR NOTE– To answer your question Mike: $$$$

Don’t fight the growth. Invest your money in it. Make a profit. Take your money to another unspoiled place and infect it with development. Keep the viral cycle going.

EDITOR NOTE–Easy to say if you are leaving town.

Regarding the nativist comments… I’m 5th generation Idahoan. My G-G-Parents homesteaded on the Northfork of the Clearwater long before the unnecessary construction of Dworshak Dam. I don’t remember Boise being a quaint little town. It’s always been an semi-urban center populated by the self-important. I remember it being that way as a child and it still has not changed.

Agent Whynotski has it right. None of us commenting are truly native. We are truly naive mixed with a heavy dose of arrogance.

Great article Guardian. Is it really whining if you propose a solution to the problem?

Now may be the time to institute my plan from the sixties.

Remember the old Marsing grade near the top where the highway hugged the cliff at the top of the canyon? It would be a fine place to put a real exit ramp marked “Fruit and Nut Inspection Point. All U-hauls and other vehicles with household goods MUST Exit here.” A posted 35 mph sign would insure that most of the subject vehicles would exit 95 doing at least seventy and clear the base of the cliff.

The same thing could be done at the Perrine Bridge and the west side of the Snake River Bridge by Ontario. Just think what we could do with the old Whitebird Grade and using imminent domain just a bit. . . Even better opportunities probably exist near our other borders.

Idaho of the 1970s, 80s, 90s? Our way of life was terminally ill even then. The transplants just hadn’t been here long enough to know it. . .

I too welcome transplants- – – I welcome them to pack up ALL their junk, their relatives, friends, cats, arrogance and chipboard houses then leave!

Boise growth– Although a former long time resident, I don’t recognize Boise anymore and, when I visit, I usually get lost.

I see using the native card as nothing more than a schoolyard ploy to “neener-neener” at the new kids in school and is entirely counter-productive. Thank you, Sisyphus, for being a voice of reason.

Limiting new construction will make housing prices go up faster.

Look, Boise is going to stop growing, fairly soon, so yes, get involved in trying to preserve open space etc. Support someone progressive for the ADA county commisioner board. They’ve got the power.

When I was in my twenties, newly married, and newly out of school (ages and ages ago) I had the opportunity to choose where I would live – for the very first time in my life. You see, I was born into a military family and had nothing remotely similar to what many call a “hometown”.

Even though my wife and I only had 80 bucks cash-in-hand and a $300 check in the bank that hadn’t yet cleared, we picked up and moved to an out-of-the-way place half a country away. Yup, that’s right – Boise, Idaho.

We put down roots, bought a home, raised a family. Our oldest is now a student at the Univ. of Idaho, and our youngest went to the same elementary school as her brother & and now goes to the same Junior High (and will probably go to the same High School). We’re not into “flipping” property – been in the same old house (our first) for the past 14 years. I get to walk to work when the weather’s good, we walk to church, and we can walk to the grocery store & coffee shop. None of this has changed in the years that we’ve lived in Boise.

Now, I spent the whole first part of my life as the proverbial “outsider” (every place I lived in I was the “new kid on the block” with the funny clothes, funny haircut, and funny accent) and I know xenophobia when I see it. It is the nastiest form of abject hatred that a person can spew. And, it is the most blinding of hatreds – keeping everyone that adopts that fearful stance from being able to see viable solutions to problems.

There is one absolute truth that I’ve learned in life; when a person chooses to live in a particular city – they become citizens of that city, an inseparable component of that place. The rate of growth of that city, the changing shape of that city, or the rapidity of social and cultural change within that city, may be byproducts of an influx of people – but it cannot change the nature of the choice these people made to become members of that community. It doesn’t matter where a person comes from, or how long ago they came from that place. If they live in Boise, they are Boiseans.

If our town doesn’t fit with one of its citizen’s wishes, Pogo put it best;

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

I applaud everyone that stays committed to making & keeping this town a great place to live – but please remember, we are all in this together (even if some of us are newbies).

“Team Dave” leader Dave Bieter is pushing to populate the south hills with another round of development.” Gaurdian – Ask Dave which developer he has already ruffled the feathers of? I think those 15,000 acres and their owners would much rather deal with the Ada County. Avimor, The Cliffs and other leapfrog development frustrate Bieter because he has no chance at increasing his tax revenue. Notice how he said nothing in regards to the M3 announcement, Dave’s cohort in taxation, Nancy, already laid claim to the taxes. He sees the southern desert has his last chance to get the last remaining bits of land/taxes surrounding Boise.