As tourism increases, there has been increased traffic in Sedona, Arizona, a popular resort town, but the traffic is also due to residents commuting to work. | Pixabay
As tourism increases, there has been increased traffic in Sedona, Arizona, a popular resort town, but the traffic is also due to residents commuting to work. | Pixabay
As tourism increases, there has been increased traffic in Sedona, a popular resort town, but the traffic is also due to residents commuting to work.
Researchers found that 74% of those with jobs in Sedona commute to work from larger cities, the University of Arizona News reported. Many of these people can't afford to live in Sedona, which is a story unfolding in many rural resort towns across the west.
"Personally, I've just noticed it from going to all these places," Philip Stoker, assistant professor at the University of Arizona School of Landscape Architecture and Planning in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, told University of Arizona News. "Moab, Utah, is one of my favorites and it's been highly impacted, so I had kind of a personal motivation to do this."
Stoker researched gateway communities with collaborators to see what these 1,500 communities are facing as challenges and opportunities.
One of the biggest issues was the affordability of housing in these rural resort towns.
"If you've been living there and growing up in this community and you don't have a job that's paying the salary of someone who's in, for example, downtown Seattle, you're going to be excluded from this community and your ability to invest in land and property if you haven't already," Stoker told University of Arizona News.
While housing affordability was a pressing issue, tourism wasn't. There weren't many tensions between tourists and long-term residents of the areas.
"One of the anecdotal things we were hearing about is there's always this kind of old-timer-versus-newcomer dynamic in these communities," Stoker told University of Arizona News. "Public officials across the questionnaire didn't report that it was as serious as we thought."
Through the research, Stoker and his collaborators hope the information they find can help these rural resort towns when it comes to planning.
"Our goal here was that if we can identify the problems, our next step is looking at what strategies can help these communities maintain and adapt to growth as it happens, and then control growth, too, so that it's not just happening to them," Stoker told University of Arizona News.
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