| May 26, 2001
Growth ambushes one town, passes another by
By REBECCA COOK
Associated Press Writer
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Darrin Allison doesn't know what happened to
the town he grew up in, but he knows it's gone.
Sitting in a stubbornly blue-collar Redmond diner where the smell of
grease and cigarettes lingers in the air, Allison remembers chasing
salamanders through the woods and fields of Redmond as a boy in the
1960s.
"It was rural. Idyllic," he says. But the open spaces were chewed up
by office parks and housing developments Allison and his friends can't
afford. Of his childhood buddies, he alone still lives in Redmond.
"Microsoft, Nintendo. It's a high-tech identity," he said. He doesn't
begrudge Redmond its success. But the town has outgrown its farming
roots, and in a way it has outgrown him.
"The quality of life has gone down," he says sadly. "I don't think
you can say it hasn't."
About 110 miles to the southwest, Shelli Hopsecger, 32, gives an
enthusiastic tour of the Grays Harbor Port in Aberdeen, pointing out
vast tracts available for development.
Like Allison, Hopsecger is the only one of her childhood friends who
lives in Aberdeen. Cheap housing is plentiful in her hometown; her
classmates moved away because they couldn't find jobs. The logging
downturn in the 1980s and '90s hit this town hard.
"I was one of the lucky ones," says Hopsecger, public relations
director for the port.
In Aberdeen, the problem is not too much growth, but lack of it.
Both areas are struggling with their identities - Redmond to keep its
character, and Aberdeen to find a new image. It's a contrast repeated
across the West, as some towns reap the benefits of booming high-tech
economies, while others struggle to become less reliant on the dwindling
natural resources economy that defined the old West.
Aberdeen leaders don't want the growth that has overwhelmed Puget
Sound cities like Redmond, but they admit they could use just a touch of
it. Redmond grew 7,800 percent in the last 50 years, and Aberdeen's
population declined 16 percent.
For the first half of the 20th century, Aberdeen entrepreneurs would
have laughed at the notion that one day the sleepy farm village of
Redmond would overtake them in prominence and population.
The port city of Aberdeen was founded in 1890, named after a local
fish canning company with stockholders in Scotland.
Aberdeen's lumber mills helped build the West. When San Francisco
burned after the earthquake of 1906, Aberdeen and nearby Hoquiam
supplied the wood to rebuild it.
"Aberdeen from its beginning really perceived itself as a player in
the world economy," said Grays Harbor Chamber of Commerce President
LeRoy Tipton.
The 1895 opening of the railroad - with the line to Aberdeen financed
by local businessmen and built by local laborers - spurred the city's
biggest boom. The 1890 population of 1,638 people jumped to 13,660 in
1910. The population peaked in 1930 at 21,723.
Meanwhile, Redmond was a backwater named Salmonburg, notable only for
abundant dog salmon in the surrounding streams. The hills were logged in
the early years, but by the 1920s most of the virgin forest was gone and
logging was replaced by dairy and chicken farms.
The population was 300 when Redmond incorporated in 1912, and stayed
below 1,500 until 1960. The town was isolated from Seattle's growth by
Lake Washington, and for a long time had only one stoplight.
The opening of Evergreen Floating Point Bridge in 1963 fueled
Redmond's biggest spurt of growth, from 1,426 in 1960 to 11,031 in 1970.
With easy access to Seattle, Redmond took off. Its new identity took
shape in 1986, when the growing Microsoft company relocated from
Bellevue to Redmond. But Redmond does not live or die by Microsoft
alone. When a federal court ordered the company to break up last year,
an order still being appealed, most Redmond residents yawned. The town
has plenty of other employers, from Nintendo to Eddie Bauer, to sustain
its economy.
The growth has been good for small businesses, too. Victor's Celtic
Coffee Company, an independent cafe, has prospered as Redmond grew over
the past decade.
"When we first moved to Redmond, you wouldn't see a soul on the
street after six o'clock," owner Victor Harding said, taking a break
from roasting coffee beans in his sunny cafe. "It's changing."
But the growth that nurtured his business also burned him out. He and
his wife are moving to Cannon Beach, Ore., in search of the peaceful
lifestyle that Redmond once promised.
"We're ready to just slow it down, live a little simpler in a quieter
town," he said.
Slowing growth is a big concern in Redmond. Traffic is the main
complaint, as little farm-to-market roads have been overwhelmed by
growth. The city is trying to encourage more livable development. And a
historical society formed just two years ago to try to preserve what's
left.
"Some people feel like they're losing the identity of the town," said
Redmond planner Dianna Brodie. "We're seeing a push for historic
preservation. There are some mixed feelings."
Aberdeen didn't have the luxury of mixed feelings when the timber
industry took a nosedive in the 1980s and 1990s. A recession and
restructuring in the 1980s were followed by new environmental
regulations in the 1990s, notably the protection of the spotted owl.
"Mill after mill was shutting down. It was just one thing after
another," recalls Hopsecger. "The initial reaction was to fight."
Grays Harbor County's unemployment averaged 12.7 percent during the
1980s and 11.1 percent during the 90s. It's now 11.2 percent, almost
double the state average of 6 percent. About half the county's work
force is employed in some timber-related industry.
Diversification is the watchword as the area slowly climbs out of its
depression. The timber company Weyerhaeuser is still the largest
employer in Aberdeen, followed by the hospital and a state prison. But
city leaders are trying with some success to recruit different
companies, from secondary wood product manufacturers to high-tech
enterprises.
"Eighty-eight percent of the land is trees," said Michael Tracy,
executive director of the Grays Harbor Economic Development Council. "We
are natural-resources based and always will be. But we're definitely
diversifying"
While city leaders may view Redmond's strong tax base and low
unemployment with envy, many Aberdeen residents think their
growth-deprived town is just fine the way it is.
"I can't imagine living anywhere else. We do have problems but
nothing like the big cities," said Mary Larson, as she peeled potatoes
for the VFW hall beef stew dinner. "I enjoy the small town. I would not
like to see it at 50,000 or 60,000, but at the same token it can't get
any smaller. I would like to see some new businesses."
Her husband Louie, a retired city worker, agrees. He's glad he lives
in Aberdeen, especially when he turns on the news and hears about the
traffic on I-5.
"I don't think it could go much slower" in Aberdeen, he says, and
that's the way he likes it.
"I was born here, I'll probably die here." |
