The Teton Pass collapsed in the most economically unequal county in the country | Hacker News Reader

The Teton Pass collapsed in the most economically unequal county in the country

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46 pointsrntn8 comments

To those interested in these dynamics - particularly the interactions between massive wealth, inequality, and the natural world – I'd recommend "Billionaire Wilderness" by Justin Farrell.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176673/bi...

I would love to hear proposals about what a good and fair society under these conditions could look like. 20k people live in the county and it sounds like there really isn't any way to meaningfully increase housing supply. So who gets to live there?

The bad news is I don't see any satisfactory solution to these problems. The good news is it's a problem I'll never be lucky enough to have.

Property taxation based on income location? If you’re earning out of state, or neighboring state, get a high property tax bill.

Or, non-primary residence high bills?

Much lower property tax bills for working in-state?

> So who gets to live there?

How about, people who actually want to live there? It sounds like a lot of the problem is "overdevelopment", that is, building second/third homes for people who only live there part-time (but whose property needs to be maintained full-time).

So one potential solution could include a tax on vacant property. I'm sure there are other ideas people have had and tried in other locations with varying degrees of success. Your statement of "I don't see any satisfactory solution" amounts to a hopeless framing of the debate that starts and ends with "we've tried nothing and it hasn't worked". The good news is that you can simply cut the second paragraph of your comment and it would be measurably improved as it would be more inviting to constructive commentary.

Anecdotal, but from a friend (not wealthy) who lived near Jackson as a young adult the largest, most extravagant homes would not be considered vacant. He interacted with caretakers that lived permanently in one of the homes. This is especially important in the winter because temperatures can be so harsh in the Jackson / Teton / Yellowstone area. It was worth it to the owners to avoid any risk of a water pipe bursting. Apparently the caretakers told him utility costs alone for the McMansion were over $5,000 a month.

So clearly vacancy taxes can be gamed after a certain point of wealth. But I think they still would be effective at reducing the number of vacant properties because the bar to hire employees to exclusively live at your property to care for it is so high.

Incidentally my friend’s experiences in Jackson were influential in shifting him away from the libertarian mindset his parents raised him with. The realities of observing the wealth gap really troubled him.

So, I like to divide things into orders of magnitude since that tends to produce meaningful qualitative differences between levels. And I think due to inflation, ^6 wealth is these days $3m-$30m, which would be considered "rich" (compared to ^5 "upper middle class" and ^7 "ultra-high-net-worth", and of course beyond). Do you think the people who own those McMansions are ^6, or are they in a higher wealth class? It seems weird that ^7 or higher would buy a McMansion but $5k/mo seems exorbitant for ^6.

And yeah, I think that interacting with wealth more than 1 level above (or below) your own wealth class experience is really eye-opening. Most of us don't (because it's too uncomfortable for one or the other).

They could fit more people in the existing town by building up. Replace houses with apartment buildings.

Most of the valley is protected, but the south of the valley near Jackson and Wilson are farms and big homes. The empty space could turned into homes with boring suburban densities. If the rich don't like that, they can pay to prevent it.

> there really isn't any way to meaningfully increase housing supply

There completely is though, just build more housing. The restrictions are completely arbitrary. Jackson could build a dozen 5-story high apartment complexes to house thousands of people, and it'd be fine.

Yellowstone National Park gets 5 million tourist visitors per year, so if anyone claims the environmental impact of a few hundred or thousand permanent residents would matter, they're mistaken or lying.

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