Is CDA an anomaly? (Coeur d'Alene, Hayden: transplants, houses, neighborhoods)

[BostonJad]

I recently visited your state and gotta say was quite surprised with what I saw. I was coming from Spokane so CDA was just across the state boundary.

It's a beautiful destination with the lake, Tubbs Hill and Sherman St is quite vibrant. Then when traveling north it starts to become very artificial with multitudes of developments and big box stores. Quite surprising the amount of supermarkets like Safeways and Albertsons for the city its size but maybe they are anticipating the influx of residents after the Wall Street Journal #1 best emerging market designation. As for the developments themselves, they just feel very artificial and I bet they are overpriced with just transplants that moved here and no one knows each other.

Its just unlike the impression you would have of the state as being bucolic, farmlands and mining towns. Of course as you travel yonder you get to see these. I did speak to a lot of folks and many did express that this came out of nowhere and happened so quickly. Interested to hear what other folks think of this.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

That's right, The prairie and farmland are being paved over as quickly as possible and any new housing development is no different than any new housing development anywhere else. You could be standing in California for all the difference there is. Exact same houses on itty bitty lots, crowded streets with too much traffic.


You missed "bucolic" by several decades.

[volosong]

Not at all sure what you mean by "artificial". I've lived in suburbia all my life and it is no different here. Sure, the West does not have the culture and history that Boston has. It's a much younger place. But "artificial"? I guess to you. To me, it is just the suburbs.

It's just "different". You have culture and history. We have an outdoor paradise, (e.g., tall mountains, wildlife, rivers, lakes).

[banjomike]

It didn't come out of nowhere.

After the end of WWII, there was a very long migration west. Throughout that migration (and its still going on), there was always one state that got much more attention than the others.

The migration began with California, and then skipped around; New Mexico, followed, then Colorado and Oregon. Nevada, Washington, Wyoming, Montana. Arizona. And then, finally, Idaho.

It always happens more or less the same way. Trendsetters discover the state, the first wave begins to trickle in behind them, and then there's a lag while they all settle in and the word that this is the new cool place to be begins to develop and slowly spread.

It takes years, sometimes a decade or more, for the word to spread, and during all that time, the state is still receiving newcomers, more each year, but is still off the general public's popularity radar.

To me, it's like a large swell in the ocean. It's slow to forms and goes unnoticed until it begins to move. And then it just keeps coming and growing larger.
That's what I would call the second wave. It fills up the coolest places of the coolest new state to live in, and that is when everyone else becomes aware of the state for the first time.

By the time the third wave arrives, the unique qualities of the state haven't disappeared, but they've faded, covered by the sameness that comes from more people arriving.

I think America chose suburbia as our way to accommodate migration. Suburbs look the same because that's how we want them to look.

It's familiar to us, and it may lessen the intense challenges of living in a new place where there isn't much available for newcomers to cushion the shock of the new.

[BostonJad]

Originally Posted by volosong

Not at all sure what you mean by "artificial". I've lived in suburbia all my life and it is no different here. Sure, the West does not have the culture and history that Boston has. It's a much younger place. But "artificial"? I guess to you. To me, it is just the suburbs.

It's just "different". You have culture and history. We have an outdoor paradise, (e.g., tall mountains, wildlife, rivers, lakes).

Listen I am not dissing the state just CDA and general artificial environments you find replicated in many parts of the country. I did find history and culture in Wallace ID and the towns nearby. Even in Spokane you'd find old buildings and neighborhoods seem to exhibit their own character like Browne's Addition and Garland District. In CDA its just soulless cul de sac developments.

[apple92680]

Originally Posted by BostonJad

Listen I am not dissing the state just CDA and general artificial environments you find replicated in many parts of the country. I did find history and culture in Wallace ID and the towns nearby. Even in Spokane you'd find old buildings and neighborhoods seem to exhibit their own character like Browne's Addition and Garland District. In CDA its just soulless cul de sac developments.

Kootenai County, Idaho is fast becoming Orange County, CA of the 1970s. Spokane County is like Los Angeles County at that same time. Both of them have all of the same hallmarks.

Spokane is the more "urban" and liberal bigger city, while Kootenai County is a provincial patchwork of rapidly growing suburbs with competing interests.

Instead of crossing over the once-infamous "Orange Curtain" at Buena Park, one now crosses the "Red Curtain" when leaving Liberty Lake, WA and entering Stateline, Idaho.

[elousv]

If you want authentic then we should bulldoze the Resort and put the sawmill back. Also going to need a cathouse at 4th and Sherman. Speaking of fake, most of Boston would be under water if it wasn't artificially filled in.

[nm9stheham]

FWIW... A lot of this sameness comes from the standards that have been more and more gradually being put in place over the past few decades. It includes not just building codes, but there have evolved 'standard' ideas and methodologies for zoning, planning, and developers' approaches to such things.

I'm not being necessarily critical, but more observational on this matter: Gov't planning and zoning agencies are not always very imaginative on these matters, and will tend to 'go with the crowd' of other zoning and planning agencies because it is known and not controversial and will not stir up political opposition and the consequent politicians putting the bureaucrats on the 'hot seat'.

And of course, builders and developers of standard, tract-type housing are going to go with what they know and have done successfully in the past. Part of this is to be effiecient and keep things more affordable... at least as affordable as things can be.

So yes, you get cookie cutter developments and houses. But that meets that needs of a lot of people and so has a positive quality when thought of from that from that angle. Custom houses and developing hilly land COST much more. I am getting ready to my 2nd house now, in WY, and the site, while it has specatacur views, will cost several times more than a flat lot to develop just to the point of putting in the foundation. So there are good reasons to do it the way it is being done... though I will agree it is not my cup of tea.

And transplants gotta live somewhere, just like the old timers LOL!

[Walkaboutcda]

Originally Posted by BostonJad

Listen I am not dissing the state just CDA and general artificial environments you find replicated in many parts of the country. I did find history and culture in Wallace ID and the towns nearby. Even in Spokane you'd find old buildings and neighborhoods seem to exhibit their own character like Browne's Addition and Garland District. In CDA its just soulless cul de sac developments.

Please tell everyone you know about how soulless Coeur d'Alene is.

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by BostonJad

I recently visited your state and gotta say was quite surprised with what I saw. I was coming from Spokane so CDA was just across the state boundary.

It's a beautiful destination with the lake, Tubbs Hill and Sherman St is quite vibrant. Then when traveling north it starts to become very artificial with multitudes of developments and big box stores. Quite surprising the amount of supermarkets like Safeways and Albertsons for the city its size but maybe they are anticipating the influx of residents after the Wall Street Journal #1 best emerging market designation. As for the developments themselves, they just feel very artificial and I bet they are overpriced with just transplants that moved here and no one knows each other.

Its just unlike the impression you would have of the state as being bucolic, farmlands and mining towns. Of course as you travel yonder you get to see these. I did speak to a lot of folks and many did express that this came out of nowhere and happened so quickly. Interested to hear what other folks think of this.

I’ve disliked the 95 corridor from CDA to north of Hayden the entire time (20 years) we’ve been here. It is an anomaly for northern Idaho. Sandpoint is a tourist town but it’s also still a timber town and a better representation of north Idaho.

I’m a Bostonian who ended up here. We lived in The Devonshire in the financial district, Millis and Framingham. My husband was born in Cambridge.
We went from downtown Boston to an off grid cabin on the Priest River that we built ourselves. We live in Spokane (the historic part of the South Hill)half of the year, and Worley, ID on the lake the other half now.
Are you in the city?