John Steinbeck said that there鈥檚 only one story in the world, and we tell it over and over. If you live in a resort town, that story is about the lack of affordable housing, which leaves no aspect of the community untouched.

Consider, for example, composting.

Many restaurants compost food-waste in and around , where I work. But not everybody does it. In one location, a guest asked a manager: 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 you compost here?鈥� The manager responded: 鈥淵ou may not be aware of this, but my business had a severe labor shortage this year鈥攔egion wide, we were down 60 employees. Composting takes labor. If we were fully staffed, we鈥檇 be able to do it no problem. But right now we don鈥檛 even have enough cashiers.鈥�

Why the labor shortage? It turns out that employers can鈥檛 house their workforces. The ski company I work for is short some 600 beds alone, even after spending tens of millions of dollars on housing. Workers apply for jobs, realize there鈥檚 no place to sleep, and move on.

Let鈥檚 dig deeper. The person who asked about composting is likely part of what I鈥檇 call an 鈥渙ld school鈥� environmental community that practices preservationism鈥攐f small town character, of land, and of history. She almost certainly also opposed recent efforts to increase density鈥攔ead: affordable housing鈥攊n our town in the name of, you guessed it, protecting the environment.

This worldview is widespread. Mountain communities are often run by environmentalists from 40 years ago whose thinking has not kept abreast of the development in their hometowns. They champion stasis over change, open space over density, and consider development evil. They hate crowds鈥攅ven though crowds are the foundation of the entire resort economy. 鈥淭he only thing they hate more than sprawl,鈥� an architect told me, 鈥渋s density.鈥�

Parts of Aspen look like they did decades ago, with Victorian houses and big, lovely parks. There are, however, no people in those聽houses (often second, third, or fourth聽homes), and a long line of traffic every morning and evening聽as people forced to live downvalley, where real estate is cheaper, end up commuting 20, 30, and even 50 miles to work.

There鈥檚 nothing environmental-friendly about any of this. The long commute creates pollution. It blocks guests from the ski hill. It wears out the road. It鈥檚 the exact antithesis of all the ideas Aspen was founded on鈥攁bout renewal and escaping from the world.

I don鈥檛 mean to pick on Aspen. All resort towns鈥攆rom to 听迟辞听 to 鈥攅xperience the same challenges. Ditto for Aspen鈥檚 down valley neighbor, Basalt, where I serve on the town council. 鈥淏ut we don鈥檛 want more people in town!鈥� a local radio host told me once. Residents, who mostly make decisions based on what will affect their property values, vote along those lines every time.

So what鈥檚 the fix? For one, we need to embrace density. Basic urban planning principles offer some solutions. Build infill housing in the urban core, or at least within the urban growth boundary, along transit routes. Make it dense, which means small units that go up instead of out. Change codes to allow for smaller houses, which are more affordable (Carbondale, Colorado, just eliminated minimum house size requirements) and enable mother-in-law units with occupation requirements.

There are gnarlier answers, too. in California would get rid of zoning restrictions around transit hubs in bigger cities, making it easier to build thousands of new units near bus stops and train stations. You can see how this would scare residents concerned about community character. But it was their unwillingness to plan ahead and accommodate others that led to the crush of housing in the first place. 聽

Don鈥檛 get me wrong: I鈥檓 not advocating for totally unrestricted growth. The goal isn鈥檛 to 鈥渓et everyone in,鈥� as people fear, or exceed carrying capacity. It鈥檚 for communities to be able to house their workforces. In doing that, we should respect urban growth boundaries and oppose unmitigated sprawl. But we must also welcome changes to our towns and understand that nothing living gets locked in time.

How do we get to the above solutions? The short answer is that we need a civics revolution, whereby younger citizens鈥攖he very ones who need housing鈥攐r enlightened elders either run for office or amp up pressure on those already in power. We need to bring to the table something missing from American politics: a commitment to the community over self interest. We need a new YIMBYism鈥擸es In My Back Yard鈥攙ersus the current NIMBYism. We need to learn again how to live together.聽

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