That sentiment isn't unique to small towns either.
Residents of Austin, TX have been complaining that the city changed or got too crowded shortly after they moved in, whether that was a year ago or decades ago. People who moved to SF in 2010 complained about the people moving there in 2015.
Same thing happens at a neighborhood or district level too. Everybody feels like they were the last person to move in while it was still good and everything after them is unwelcome.
>Residents of Austin, TX have been complaining that the city changed or got too crowded shortly after they moved in
I've been told Austin's city council mulishly refused to see the growth trend and didn't annex the hills around the city when they had the chance. Austin waterways like Bull Creek went from summertime swimming holes to unsafe to enter due to septic tank runoff and high levels of coliform bacteria because city services - sewerage in particular - weren't extended to those areas.
People who lived there really hoped the usual waxing and waning of population in cadence with student university attendance would go on forever. But according to an aunt who lived there from the 1960s until property taxes priced her out a few years ago, too many people loved it and moved back after school or just never left and it sort of snowballed from there. Her anecdotal evidence was the cashiers at her Half Price Books stores she managed often had Masters degrees but chose to work there rather than move and find a better job elsewhere.
These days people running a cash register while holding an advanced degree is more of a cliche than remarkable evidence that some place is so special you'd rather be underpaid there than be paid better somewhere else.
But yeah to hear her tell it, in her forty years there every decade that passed brought some unwelcome change to Austin.
There's this song I like called "Austin, TX Blues" by Netherfriends and judging by the lyrics I'm guessing this is a common sentiment.
I mean is anybody from here?
Have you ever met anybody from here?
Have you ever seen so many condos in your whole damn life
That were built here in one year?
Everyone I know that was born here is dope as fuck
And everybody else sucks
I'm pretty sure the song is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but still.
The very, very easy way to fix that is to build enough housing. Places don't suck because a lot of people live there, they suck for lots of reasons that are orthogonal to the population.
Rapid change is disruptive. No remedy will please locals who don't welcome those changes. Folks who lived in Austin 30 years ago (before the growth in Round Rock, Georgetown, and the Hill Country, and the invasion of high tech) chose to live there because it was affordable and offered a fun weird mix of music & academics unique for hundreds of miles (perhaps similar to Santa Fe's acculturation 40 years ago). That precious mix has diminished to make their home less weird, more commercial, and damned expensive.
There's no easy fix for this, especially in a place as extremely laissez-faire as Texas, where urban planning and zoning are seen as mortal sins.
Canada's really getting hit. Market looks like a gaming table. Housing drastically needs protection from speculators.
Take Vancouver - even though they passed residency laws, with penalties. Average price in 1977: $90k. 2017:$1.05M. Average price dropped to $900k in Dec 2020 ... now $1.4M.
I don't think it's subjective at all. There are cities that are clean and safe and well run, and you might not want to live there because they have a lot of people, but that doesn't make the city bad. I think your preference to live away from people is subjective, and that's fine, but the rule can't be that you get to live right where you want and no one else can move. Either people can move or they can't. I presume you don't live in the neighborhood you grew up in?
I’m not saying the solution is for people to not move, I’m in favour of people living where they want. I don’t have the solution to the problems caused by rapid growth, it’s probably some combination of allowing mixed zoning so that there is enough housing and supporting businesses for the new residents along with better planning of or restrictions on municipal expansion to avoid sprawl and encourage better use of the land within the existing municipality. There’s probably a bunch of other reforms necessary to prevent the bad parts of gentrification and provide more of a safety net for people who get displaced. It’sa big hairy problem for sure.
Reminds me of the George Carlin joke. "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"
Residents of Austin, TX have been complaining that the city changed or got too crowded shortly after they moved in, whether that was a year ago or decades ago. People who moved to SF in 2010 complained about the people moving there in 2015.
Same thing happens at a neighborhood or district level too. Everybody feels like they were the last person to move in while it was still good and everything after them is unwelcome.