> If the local residents are wealthy enough to live in the area, perhaps businesses have to bite the bullet, raise prices locally, and pay more for essential services like bartenders, wait staff, retail, etc
I love your definition of "essential services" are bartenders and wait staff. You sound like a real great person to be planning for critical events, such as wildfires which occur in our area.
Also "If the local residents are wealthy enough to live in the area" - lol, do you realize in our Town of 16,000 people, there are more than 50% of our houses that are NOT locals. On a busy weekend we expand to about 55,000 people. The problem is not the full time locals, but the temporary residents who exacerbate this problem. Their houses remain off the market for local residents to rent because they want to (rightfully so) njoy their second home for a few weeks a year - which precludes a long-term leaser. It doesn't matter how much wages rise, locally - there are CFO's of local businesses who have had to move because they cannot find housing.
Yes, we live in a national forest, so simply building more housing is slowed down by natural beauty and environmental assessments, and the usual NIMBYism too. But the town is quite aligned behind trying to solve this problem somehow.