I learned a really awful bit of jargon earlier this year. “Incumbent residents” is a fancy way of saying “the people who actually live here long enough to register to vote and earn a say in local politics,” i.e. citizens. Jet setters and remote workers have fled places like San Francisco to Seattle driving up the local housing market and cost of living. A similar trend is occurring here now where people are gentrifying Warren County to escape gentrification where they left. 

 Not that I have much room to talk. Up until November I’d spent the last several years living first in Burbank, Calif. and then five years in Manila. I now see my time in Manila a bit differently. When I was there, I definitely enjoyed the lower cost of living but didn’t really give a thought as to how expats and tourists can run up the costs of certain things, pricing them out for the people who do live there year-round.  

 I know there are issues in the city and county that have prevented growth that would be good for all involved who live here as well as those who come to enjoy the natural beauty and other things McMinnville and Warren County have to offer. I am all for that. When I do balk at something related to industry or tourism development is when it is more likely to serve only a small portion of the movers and shakers, that industry itself, the local government or certain local businesses. 

There’s nothing wrong with catering to the out-of-towners coming to visit or the transplants from the West Coast and elsewhere who have been making their way into places like Texas and Tennessee over the past few years. That was another one of those things that I’d heard about for years while I was overseas but couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Even when I got back to McMinnville, I didn’t really see it. It wasn’t until I rode with a friend up to Nashville to see the Local Honeys and Town Mountain this February that it hit me when we stopped at this hipster-counterfeit “country cuisine” restaurant. The place had “sweet-tea brined fried chicken” which, I’ll admit, as a Southerner I’d never heard of but if I were a Yankee I reckon it is the kind of thing I’d believe a Southerner might like.  

Gentrification (when an area’s demographics are changed by an influx of wealthy residents driving up the cost of living) is nothing new, but the issue of rural gentrification has exploded since COVID.

 The kind of gentrification that’s going on in Nashville is happening all over though and it’s affecting the availability of affordable housing and more. Those issues trickle down and affect all of society. I don’t believe in the myth of money trickling down but troubles always do. I do want to stress that I’m not against the growth of tourism and industry in this area. Growth is great … if it serves the citizens.

Standard reporter Philip Fairbanks can be reached at (931) 473-2191.