The Roundup | Why focus on community?

I was born in Chicago, Illinois, but I grew up in Crested Butte, Colorado, the place I truly came of age. The first time I laid eyes on that charming grid of dirt streets in the summer of 1969, I fell in love with that special place.

Identifying Crested Butte as my first “sense of place” forever made it my spiritual home, a place that, despite dramatic changes, still warms my heart. That attachment grew dramatically in the late-‘70s/early ‘80s when the town rose up as a mostly unified whole to battle an international mining conglomerate that announced plans to build an enormous industrial molybdenum mine on Mount Emmons, beneath Red Lady Bowl, just five miles west of town.

The “Save the Lady” campaign, on which I reported for the Crested Butte Chronicle, had every element of “the good fight”: a small and spirited community facing off against an economic and industrial juggernaut. After five years of pitched fighting on every front, the mining company withdrew. Crested Butte had prevailed, thanks to a community that summoned hidden resources few of us knew existed. Foremost among them was a mutual love of place. Lasting inspiration came from witnessing a small community declare and defend its autonomy in a fundamental display of democratic principles.

In 1984, I rode my mountain bike across the Elk Mountains for a job interview with The Aspen Times, which became my new employer. As an Aspen reporter, I discovered, over time, a more complex community built on multiple layers crossing historic epochs. The value of community was extant for many locals in the shared love and protection of place from commoditizing influences that have long threatened what many consider the soul of the town.

The Aspen Journalism series I initiated in December 2023 with a feature on regionalism seeks to broaden the notion of community along the 80-mile commuter corridor from Aspen to Parachute. A four-part series within the series then stripped back the historic layers of Aspen to reveal the decades-long struggle for community identity that surfaces regularly today in opinion columns and letters to the local papers.

The series, which we launched thanks to a grant from the Aspen Business Center Foundation run by the local McBride family, continues next with growing expressions of community in the downvalley burgs of Basalt, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Silt, Rifle and Parachute — communities that cherish their individual identities and characters while recognizing regional affiliations. At least three more installments will follow (and thanks to Aspen Daily News for running the series in print). In sum, the series hopes to instill a wider appreciation for social cohesion based on diversity, mutuality and the psycho-emotional need for community in every walk of life.

– Paul Andersen

The battle for the Aspen Idea: Community or commodity?

Generational question remains unresolved as roots of elitism, counter culture and capitalism usher Aspen into a new age of affluence

By Paul Andersen | February 11, 2024

“Paepcke’s experiment in idiosyncratic enlightened capitalism proved to be a pivotal moment in the evolution of tourism in the 20th-century West, a bridge between a more elitist past and a future of mass culture.”

Data dashboard: January occupancy influenced by global economy

Snowpack at Schofield Pass reached 19.5 inches of snow-water equivalent on Feb. 18, or 89% of median.

Paid occupancy in Aspen reached 69.3% in January, down from 79.3% last year. Meanwhile, Snowmass recorded 72% paid occupancy, down from 2023’s 73.1%. Snowpack at Schofield Pass reached 19.5 inches of snow-water equivalent on Feb. 18, up from 17.6 inches last week. Lake Powell was 34.4% full on Feb. 18, down from 34.6% last week but up from 23% a year ago.

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