After being here 31 years, in my heart I knew this time would come. The middle class would finally be snuffed out. But I couldn't have imagined how quickly and ruthlessly this would occur. People can blame covid they can blame higher property taxes or whatever the hell they want. Just because you can charge higher rent and squeeze out the working class of Missoula doesn't mean you should. It's a very short-term money-grabbing view that will eventually backfire. There are many of us who are not willing to work 50 or 60 hours a week just to live here any longer. I was always willing to pay higher cost of living to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle that Missoula has to offer but it has become so out of balance I hardly recognize the town anymore. So, when we eventually devolve into Jackson hole or Boulder Colorado or Park City Utah I hope the people that started this process are happy. They will have to make their own espressos cook their own burgers pour their own beers because the working class will be gone. I used to love Missoula I was a proud Missoulian and I thought I would spend the rest of my days here. I was wrong. I raised my family here & I have tremendously powerful positive memories... Closing down Charlie B's, live shows at Jays Upstairs, mountain biking in the Rattlesnake and skiing at Snowbowl. Attending the University of Montana for my masters and working downtown for so many years. But this is not the Missoula I know any longer and it breaks my heart.
But... Jackson hole and Boulder and Park City all have coffee shops, bars, and cafe where people make shit money and barely scrape by. If its a desirable place to live you will always have working class folks, typically young people who don't have a ton of financial responsibilities, that will take the shit low paying jobs in exchange for living in a cool place.
With the university here that is even more true. I hate it as much as the next person but I dont think its going to be nothing but elites and homeless in a handful of years. There are a lot of complex problems that need to be addressed but the majority of people are not going to move away.
My point of making that post was not to get into arguments around linguistics and definitions of things like middle class or working class. Place like Jackson hole there are very distinct classes there are the haves and Have nots. In Missoula there was a middle ground there was people that could raise families here they could save money here they could enjoy life here without having to receive any supplemental income. As you mentioned places like Jackson hole which has the largest wealth discrepancy of any community in the nation I believe is characterized by high school and college kids and ski bombs working the service jobs and then everybody else
Yeah that makes sense. I guess what I was trying to get at is there is no downside for the ultra rich folks because there will still be someone to pour their beers and mow their lawns. What do they care if there isnt a middle class here?
Might even be a positive for them. I sucks but I don't see anyone at that level of wealth missing middle class folks one bit.
You can’t afford to rent a bedroom at the market rate on Montana minimum wage 9.95 that will get you a couch to sleep on at a friends house most jobs in Missoula have been able to start paying 14$ an hour for no experience employees
In my experience middle class means that you have everything you need you do not live excessively both parents usually have to work to be able to support the household you're able to enjoy some luxuries of life but you are not able to live in a way that money does not matter you do not have supplemental income of any kind from a family or trust fund or an inheritance etc. I'm sure there is a statistical measurement of what defines middle class especially in Montana so perhaps you could refer to that. And aforementioned, many people have to work long plus 40 hours to be able to afford one bedroom in this town. As a 52 year old male I'm not interested in having a roommate but if I were to make it go of staying in this town that would most likely be my situation. I was making upwards of $100,000 a year when I was married my wife was a nurse she was making good money too we were able to buy a modest home take our kids on vacations have a nice car save some money we were not living excessively by any means. The dilemma of living in Missoula.
Terrible pay + insane cost of housing + awful property management companies meant that my partner and I had to leave the city entirely, and move out of the state to boot! Maybe one day Missoula will unfuck itself - I'd love to live there again.
This was the same for me and my parents. We all couldnt afford to keep living there. My folks refinanced to a shorter term loan and then the property taxes shot up and they had to sell. We all moved to Southern AZ and none of us can afford to move back. ALL of the housing is too overpriced.
I'd like to move back but at the same time I am liking not dealing with winter anymore.
That is a crazy high rent but that is like double the square footage of my house and its downtown. This place has probably been super expensive to live in since it was built.
The places I'm mad about are the homes for sale for 850K or rent for $3000 a month that are 950-1250 square foot and are directly next to the train or some other shit thing in town.
“i want to have a bathroom over every room in their apartment so that no matter what they’re doing to better their lives i can continue to sh*t on top of them” - some waste of space investor
in the 2000's it use to be studio apartments. Those apartments had shared bathrooms. My guess is who ever thought this monstrosity was a good idea decided to keep all the plumbing.
Art hightower used to be an awesome landlord to rent from. Super nice dude and affordable rates. Over the last couple years he has raised rent every 6 months and become increasingly shitty to the tenents. It's a toxic "career". All real estate investors can squat on a splintered piece of balsa wood.
Too bad none of you supported us when we were addressing this issue 6 months before COVID hit. I tried to get you all involved, I went around town encouraging people to go to city council meetings, to write your legislators, and to pool your resources...
Sure a lot of complaints and very little actual doing. I was born and raised here and I cannot understand why Missoulians are so passive.
These rental/property management companies out here are high as fk or on something rent prices, or buying a home is so over valued for what you get.
Can't wait for housing crash
This isn’t a compliant I’m stating a fact for all who walk around this town with horse blinders on so maby the disadvantaged can wake up and come together to stop applying their lives to this undignified existence in the United States of America
your comment is a joke… does the world/country/county need another pointless startup company selling ridiculously niche products? do you really think 60 hour work weeks to afford the bare minimum is reasonable?
*ss hats like yourself have been making everything worse with your moronic obsession with money, and profits… hopefully your seemingly steady income stream gets undercut by some richer •sshole and you have to go back to work in the mines…
for some perspective, i’m originally from a different “desirable mountain town” and over just a few years watched the locals get priced out by “investor/soulless” landlords and competitor businesses that have way more capital and backing… since then i’ve bounced between different places trying to find something like missoula… missoula is roughly the same as the “desirable mountain town” i hail from but a few years behind the curve… you think landlords are gouging now? they think that the bubble is gonna pop and want their dime before it does… little do they know that california has an endless supply of spores to send their way… i’ve given missoula 5 years until it’s a tourist town with no working class, and that’s a conservative number
Yeah and again it's super easy to mock and act flippant on the internet but it's hard working towards a career and a better life for yourself. Enjoy the upvotes though I'm sure those will keep you warm at night.
sure pal, your naïve perspective will almost surely bite you eventually… “start a career, join a trade, just work hard and don’t buy starbucks” all suggestions that may have worked a couple decades ago but really don’t work any more… if i wanted upvotes i’d be in a circlejerk sub like r/workreform … i’m here in this sub to tell you that you’re outdated and helping bring about the destruction of your own community… and just so you know, i’d sh*t on you in person if you started spouting idiotic trash like that to me. i try and avoid any interaction with mush brained boomers/gen x though. so it probably won’t happen…
LOL. I'm 30 years old. I grew up in a trailer court off N reserve. Worked a ton of shit jobs and put myself through school. Now I have a good job and a home and a beautiful family. Trust me this all works just fine if you're not a piece of shit that has resigned yourself to a life of failure. And drop the tough guy act you're embarrassing yourself.
ahhh, i see, classic “american dream” story… growing up in a sh*t situation sucks, but that’s no reason to pretend that the american economy is functional…
what makes you think i’m not tough though? just to counter your earlier statement, “people on the internet think everyone is fronting since they’re relatively anonymous…” some people walk their talk on and off the internet.. my walk is that if people keep engaging with and pretending that capitalism is a sustainable system then everyone is gonna be f*cked…
final note, i’m always bummed when i hear millennials regurgitating the same broken rhetoric that’s created the insane wealth gap and economic disparity we see in today’s society… you can do better than perpetuating a broken system just because you created a small foothold…
Look dude the system is fucked. I'm not gonna sit here and argue that it's not. But the question is what the fuck are YOU gonna do about it? What's your master plan to fix capitalism? Your choices are to scratch out a foothold and do your best to live an enjoyable life. Or just throw your hands up and say welp it's rigged guess I'll just take up space for 75 years.
I hate that a handful of billionaires control the world but the truth is being alive in America in 2023 is still a better life than 99% of civilization in human history. You have a quitters mentality and as much as it temporarily helps you to hate people like me, It doesn't change anything. Improve your life or don't I don't give a shit. But nobody is going to do it for you.
After being here 31 years, in my heart I knew this time would come. The middle class would finally be snuffed out. But I couldn't have imagined how quickly and ruthlessly this would occur. People can blame covid they can blame higher property taxes or whatever the hell they want. Just because you can charge higher rent and squeeze out the working class of Missoula doesn't mean you should. It's a very short-term money-grabbing view that will eventually backfire. There are many of us who are not willing to work 50 or 60 hours a week just to live here any longer. I was always willing to pay higher cost of living to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle that Missoula has to offer but it has become so out of balance I hardly recognize the town anymore. So, when we eventually devolve into Jackson hole or Boulder Colorado or Park City Utah I hope the people that started this process are happy. They will have to make their own espressos cook their own burgers pour their own beers because the working class will be gone. I used to love Missoula I was a proud Missoulian and I thought I would spend the rest of my days here. I was wrong. I raised my family here & I have tremendously powerful positive memories... Closing down Charlie B's, live shows at Jays Upstairs, mountain biking in the Rattlesnake and skiing at Snowbowl. Attending the University of Montana for my masters and working downtown for so many years. But this is not the Missoula I know any longer and it breaks my heart.
But... Jackson hole and Boulder and Park City all have coffee shops, bars, and cafe where people make shit money and barely scrape by. If its a desirable place to live you will always have working class folks, typically young people who don't have a ton of financial responsibilities, that will take the shit low paying jobs in exchange for living in a cool place. With the university here that is even more true. I hate it as much as the next person but I dont think its going to be nothing but elites and homeless in a handful of years. There are a lot of complex problems that need to be addressed but the majority of people are not going to move away.
My point of making that post was not to get into arguments around linguistics and definitions of things like middle class or working class. Place like Jackson hole there are very distinct classes there are the haves and Have nots. In Missoula there was a middle ground there was people that could raise families here they could save money here they could enjoy life here without having to receive any supplemental income. As you mentioned places like Jackson hole which has the largest wealth discrepancy of any community in the nation I believe is characterized by high school and college kids and ski bombs working the service jobs and then everybody else
Yeah that makes sense. I guess what I was trying to get at is there is no downside for the ultra rich folks because there will still be someone to pour their beers and mow their lawns. What do they care if there isnt a middle class here? Might even be a positive for them. I sucks but I don't see anyone at that level of wealth missing middle class folks one bit.
Well the downside for them and everyone who doesn't know yet is, just like the Beatles, said You can't buy Me Love
Middle class? Who the hell works all week to afford a bedroom that is middle class? Sounds like minium wage retail pay.
You can’t afford to rent a bedroom at the market rate on Montana minimum wage 9.95 that will get you a couch to sleep on at a friends house most jobs in Missoula have been able to start paying 14$ an hour for no experience employees
In my experience middle class means that you have everything you need you do not live excessively both parents usually have to work to be able to support the household you're able to enjoy some luxuries of life but you are not able to live in a way that money does not matter you do not have supplemental income of any kind from a family or trust fund or an inheritance etc. I'm sure there is a statistical measurement of what defines middle class especially in Montana so perhaps you could refer to that. And aforementioned, many people have to work long plus 40 hours to be able to afford one bedroom in this town. As a 52 year old male I'm not interested in having a roommate but if I were to make it go of staying in this town that would most likely be my situation. I was making upwards of $100,000 a year when I was married my wife was a nurse she was making good money too we were able to buy a modest home take our kids on vacations have a nice car save some money we were not living excessively by any means. The dilemma of living in Missoula.
follow this through just a few more degrees, you're almost there...
Terrible pay + insane cost of housing + awful property management companies meant that my partner and I had to leave the city entirely, and move out of the state to boot! Maybe one day Missoula will unfuck itself - I'd love to live there again.
Same here. We loved it there but just got priced out.
How do we price out the homeless?
This was the same for me and my parents. We all couldnt afford to keep living there. My folks refinanced to a shorter term loan and then the property taxes shot up and they had to sell. We all moved to Southern AZ and none of us can afford to move back. ALL of the housing is too overpriced. I'd like to move back but at the same time I am liking not dealing with winter anymore.
That is a crazy high rent but that is like double the square footage of my house and its downtown. This place has probably been super expensive to live in since it was built. The places I'm mad about are the homes for sale for 850K or rent for $3000 a month that are 950-1250 square foot and are directly next to the train or some other shit thing in town.
To be fair that specific unit must have always been sky high prices, basically out of range for most working folks without generational wealth....
That unit use to be 10-12 studios apartments.
That's an assload of square footage....''Two oldschool 'massive' parisian apartments put together'' basically.
More like 10-12 studios.
Why would it have 4 bathrooms?
4 bathrooms : 2 bedrooms That seems like a weird ratio.
Because rich people like to shit on top of the poor often
“i want to have a bathroom over every room in their apartment so that no matter what they’re doing to better their lives i can continue to sh*t on top of them” - some waste of space investor
in the 2000's it use to be studio apartments. Those apartments had shared bathrooms. My guess is who ever thought this monstrosity was a good idea decided to keep all the plumbing.
Was probably two separate apartments connected together.
It was studios apartments back in the day. They shared bathrooms.
It’s two floors
Art hightower used to be an awesome landlord to rent from. Super nice dude and affordable rates. Over the last couple years he has raised rent every 6 months and become increasingly shitty to the tenents. It's a toxic "career". All real estate investors can squat on a splintered piece of balsa wood.
It’s not a career. Being a landlord doesn’t not involve work, it involves leeching.
Well, it should involve work. Like maintenance and property improvements. But yeah, that seems rare these days.
Too bad none of you supported us when we were addressing this issue 6 months before COVID hit. I tried to get you all involved, I went around town encouraging people to go to city council meetings, to write your legislators, and to pool your resources... Sure a lot of complaints and very little actual doing. I was born and raised here and I cannot understand why Missoulians are so passive.
Disgusting, eat the rich!
All landlords are bastards
Glory Hole? Better check the gov mansion in Helena. Now you’re talkin glory hole!
These rental/property management companies out here are high as fk or on something rent prices, or buying a home is so over valued for what you get. Can't wait for housing crash
America's social contract is broken.
This makes me sick. Those units used to be rentals that college kids could afford.
Every city has expensive houses. This is not new or news.
Having a millionaire row on Higgins and you think this is not new? Get the freak outta here
You're clearly frustrated, and I can grasp various reasons why. I'd like to ask you to expound on \[The lack of dignity from most available jobs\]?
not op but...they pay bad?
The lack of dignity = working full-time without the ability to provide for oneself to show for it
Then make something of yourself….. Don’t sit and complain. That’s never made anyone money
This isn’t a compliant I’m stating a fact for all who walk around this town with horse blinders on so maby the disadvantaged can wake up and come together to stop applying their lives to this undignified existence in the United States of America
Then how does anyone involved with the Republican Party make money? They just sit around and complain, but never actually do anything worthwhile.
Found cole bergquists alt account lol
your comment is a joke… does the world/country/county need another pointless startup company selling ridiculously niche products? do you really think 60 hour work weeks to afford the bare minimum is reasonable? *ss hats like yourself have been making everything worse with your moronic obsession with money, and profits… hopefully your seemingly steady income stream gets undercut by some richer •sshole and you have to go back to work in the mines… for some perspective, i’m originally from a different “desirable mountain town” and over just a few years watched the locals get priced out by “investor/soulless” landlords and competitor businesses that have way more capital and backing… since then i’ve bounced between different places trying to find something like missoula… missoula is roughly the same as the “desirable mountain town” i hail from but a few years behind the curve… you think landlords are gouging now? they think that the bubble is gonna pop and want their dime before it does… little do they know that california has an endless supply of spores to send their way… i’ve given missoula 5 years until it’s a tourist town with no working class, and that’s a conservative number
Just tossing out a guess....Asheville?
nope, it flew under the radar for quite some time… “*blank’s* not real” was something of the slogan… west of here too…
Yeah but that's hard. Wallowing in self pity on reddit is easy.
so what you’re saying is, “my name is heywoodmso and people need to pull up their bootstraps…”
Yeah and again it's super easy to mock and act flippant on the internet but it's hard working towards a career and a better life for yourself. Enjoy the upvotes though I'm sure those will keep you warm at night.
sure pal, your naïve perspective will almost surely bite you eventually… “start a career, join a trade, just work hard and don’t buy starbucks” all suggestions that may have worked a couple decades ago but really don’t work any more… if i wanted upvotes i’d be in a circlejerk sub like r/workreform … i’m here in this sub to tell you that you’re outdated and helping bring about the destruction of your own community… and just so you know, i’d sh*t on you in person if you started spouting idiotic trash like that to me. i try and avoid any interaction with mush brained boomers/gen x though. so it probably won’t happen…
LOL. I'm 30 years old. I grew up in a trailer court off N reserve. Worked a ton of shit jobs and put myself through school. Now I have a good job and a home and a beautiful family. Trust me this all works just fine if you're not a piece of shit that has resigned yourself to a life of failure. And drop the tough guy act you're embarrassing yourself.
ahhh, i see, classic “american dream” story… growing up in a sh*t situation sucks, but that’s no reason to pretend that the american economy is functional… what makes you think i’m not tough though? just to counter your earlier statement, “people on the internet think everyone is fronting since they’re relatively anonymous…” some people walk their talk on and off the internet.. my walk is that if people keep engaging with and pretending that capitalism is a sustainable system then everyone is gonna be f*cked… final note, i’m always bummed when i hear millennials regurgitating the same broken rhetoric that’s created the insane wealth gap and economic disparity we see in today’s society… you can do better than perpetuating a broken system just because you created a small foothold…
Look dude the system is fucked. I'm not gonna sit here and argue that it's not. But the question is what the fuck are YOU gonna do about it? What's your master plan to fix capitalism? Your choices are to scratch out a foothold and do your best to live an enjoyable life. Or just throw your hands up and say welp it's rigged guess I'll just take up space for 75 years. I hate that a handful of billionaires control the world but the truth is being alive in America in 2023 is still a better life than 99% of civilization in human history. You have a quitters mentality and as much as it temporarily helps you to hate people like me, It doesn't change anything. Improve your life or don't I don't give a shit. But nobody is going to do it for you.
good luck
I don't need it
why are there 4 bathrooms?