Aspen and the American Dream

How One Town Manages Inequality in the Era of Supergentrification

Jenny Stuber

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780520306608
• eBook ISBN: 9780520973701
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Social Sciences

How is it possible for a town to exist where the median household income is about $73, 000, but the median home price is about $4, 000, 000? Boring into the "impossible"math of Aspen, Colorado, Stuberexplores how middle-class people have found a way to live in thissupergentrified town. Interviewing a range of residents, policymakers, and officials, Stubershows that what resolves the math equation between incomes and home values in Aspen, Colorado—the X-factorthat makes middle-class life possible—is the careful orchestration of diverse class interests within local politics and the community. She explores how this is achieved through a highly regulatory and extractive land use code that provides symbolic and material value to highly affluent investors and part-year residents, as well as less-affluent locals, many of whom benefit from an array of subsidies—including an extensive affordable housing program—that redistribute economic resources in ways that make it possible for middle-class residents to live there.

Stuberfurther examines how Latinos, who provide much of the service work in Aspen and who tend to live outside the town, fit into the social geography of one of the most unequal places in the country. Overall, Stuberargues that the Aspen's ability to balance the interests of its diverse class constituencies is not a foregone conclusion; rather, it is the result of efforts by local stakeholders—citizens, government, developers, and vacationers—to preserve the town's unique feel and value, and "keep Aspen, Aspen" in all its complex dynamics.

Table of contents

• Subvention
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Introduction: The Impossible Math of Aspen, Colorado
• 1. Place-Based Class Cultures
• 2. Living the “Aspen Dream”? Redefining and Realizing the Good Life
• 3. Steadying the Pendulum
• 4. Place-Making and the Construction of “Small-Town Character”
• 5. “But Does It Deliver Value?”: Negotiating Aspen’s Land Use Code
• 6. A Mall at the Base of a Mountain?
• 7. Buscando el Sueño Americano: Latinos in the Valley
• Conclusion: The Limits and Possibilities of Place-Making in the Era of Supergentrification
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Methodology
• Notes
• References
• Index