Why Basalt Is Better Than Aspen

August 19th, 2007 at 06:33am Michael Conniff 2

BASALT, COLORADO--It didn't take the parade at Basalt River Days Saturday for me to finally come to the conclusion that Basalt is flat-out better than Aspen. Nor was it the infamous piece in The New York Times about our little town, nor any of the local coverage (including my own) about Willits and/or the nature of the ongoing boom.

I had come to my conclusion months ago, around about the time that I had lost my stomach for what was going down in Aspen. Every time I would glean the fear of the future and the bile for visitors and second-homers, I would remember my promise never ever to live in a resort town again.

I had seen all of this before, back when I was a teenager coming back from college to my family in Southampton, Long Island. I remembered the resentment of the shopkeepers, the hatred locals felt to those who descended upon the little village that was starting to lose its quaintness when Abe Beam was still Mayor of New York. It was a tragedy, albeit an inevitable one, that continues to this day in the trenches of the Montauk Highway.

I thought I had learned my lesson: never again would I live in a resort town.

As it turns out, I don't live in a resort town. I live in Basalt, where a young couple can still have a family, where all the kids are above average. I work in Aspen, natch, and Basalt is of course a bedroom community for all manner of nonsense upvalley in Aspen. But I am lucky enough to live in a town with a real year-round population, with funky retail stores owned by locals, with bars and bistros and coffee shops and little Mexican places where you can actually have a meal without a second mortgage.

Moving to Basalt happened by accident: my publisher at the local paper found the place for us, and we have been here ever since. We get excited when we think about the bridge to the bike path that will connect us to the town on foot. We high-five whenever another new restaurant comes to Willits or El Jebel or downtown Basalt or Carbondale. We congratulate ourselves on just being plain lucky to be here.

You could see the difference Saturday on Midland Avenue during the parade of parents, children, and high-mileage hybrid cars--you could measure it in the dollops of happiness all over town. Aspen, in constrast is congested, cranky, way too expensive, obtuse, and torn up between the Haves and Have Nots.

It's way better in Basalt, where we have everything we need.

Entry Filed under: Restaurants, Real Estate, Basalt, Colorado, Family, Pitkin County, Home, Fractional Post, United Post