Aspen Developers Strive To Create Another Vail

April 26th, 2006 at 05:49am Keith Hemstreet 8

Below, I’ve listed a few of the anti-growth arguments presented at yesterday's City Council meeting:

“It is the responsibility of the council to preserve the Aspen idea…One by one Aspen’s last great places are being lost…Construction in town is making people feel as if they are being strangled.”

But is there really anything we can do to protect what remains of the towns original character from expansionist greed?

It may be that the only way to prevent further development in Aspen is to move the town to a small island in the middle of the ocean. Even then, man’s insatiable desire to profit will eventually leave the island cluttered with gaudy timeshares.

At least we’ll always have Telluride to remind us of what Aspen used to be. Well, probably not, as Telluride will likely succumb to the same pressures in due time.

As one citizen put it at the council meeting, “There’s no way you can freeze a town.”

So, where to now? Is there a "last great place" somewhere in these beautiful mountains?

Maybe one of Aspen’s developers will become so wealthy that he will decide to buy some vacant swamp land and erect a replica of Aspen in its heyday. You know, for sake of posterity. Like the way Disney might recreate ancient Rome at one of their Orlando theme parks.

Imagine how wonderful. $98 will get you a full day pass to the new park. Out-of-work actors will play the roll of miners, pick axing in pits of rock and shale as guests are transported through town in coal mine cars, passing Aspen’s history in the form of fiberglass mountains and wax figures the likes of Walter Paepcke, T.J Flynn, John Denver and Hunter S. Thompson. Dine at a genuine replica of the Red Onion, Ute City Grill or the J-Bar while thespians dressed in one-piece ski suits perform song and dance on a nearby stage.

As for the real Aspen, it will have come to resemble the “Mall of America,” but we won’t give a damn, because we’ll all have season passes to the Aspen theme park.

Entry Filed under: Politics, Vail, Aspen, Fractional Post