Becoming a mini-Portland
-
5/2/2017
This used to be a fantastic place - and in surrounding landscape it still is, for the time being until City Planners get their way and build a subdivision in the hills...
The city is surrounded by beautiful mountains that not only give incredible sunsets, but offer plenty of interesting canyon clouds and high elevation snow. The valley is much more narrow than the Flathead and Kalispell, allowing for plenty of recreation within either walking or biking distance. Downtown area is nice and great for walking [as long as you make sure turning drivers see you cross the street], with plenty of great bars and restaurants. You can get everywhere without a car- But anymore you take your life in your hands to do so.
I've been since Fall of 2008, and have watched the overall quality drop off a cliff. An influx of terrible people, even more terrible drivers [more on that later...], and city developers that are putting high-end apartments on every available plot, blocking any mountain views we once had from the middle of the town, and are designing them all after modern Seattle/Portland styles.
They all look the same and do not fit the traditional architecture of the town at all. What's worse is that they start at $795 for a studio! Really?? In a College town with employers that either give no hours or minimum wages, that's absurdly high. Good luck trying to rent a house without 4 other people - or renting at all! House rentals are virtually non-existent. And if you can buy, watch out! Because it's a College town, everyone wants top dollar for everything. Cute but dated cottage houses for $175K; million dollar homes or sardine apartment complexes clogging the hills; and a dilapidated Victorian mansion out in Bonner that they still wanted $50K for. There was literally a warning about touring the property due to being structurally unsound. There was a listing in west Missoula for a "fixer upper" where the owner wanted $1250 rent, acknowledged that most Missoula renters are single parents or low-paid college students, and yet still required 3x rent as your income! Define "extortion"...
The University of Montana started off as a beautiful, highly regarded institution. A trove of NW education nestled in a small forest. Now it's a stripped-down excuse for the athletic complex to pay for their unnecessary expansion. The grounds crews take down massive, perfectly healthy trees in the dead of night (or weekend) and replace them with geometrically pleasing saplings. My friend and I were literally walking to the gym one night and went 'wait, wasn't there a giant tree there?' It was super stealthy, but ruins the woodsy feel the campus one had. Programs of any interest have been hacked and slashed in order to pay for the Presidents' self-imposes bonuses; leaving only Biology, Phrama, and of course, the ever-expanding Business School.
Observing driving habits and behavior here, I can only conclude that this place was plucked out of some sort of Bizzaro World. If one person makes a turn into traffic from a stop sign, everyone behind them can turn; Red Lights mean "only 3 more"; the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way; no one knows how to read traffic signs or road markings; everyone drives in the middle of the road, wrong side of the parking lot, and parks how they want; Stop Signs are a bureaucratic nuisance and people take it as a personal insult if you actually have to 100% stop your car.
*breath* Sigh. That's not even getting to the true psycho and/or sociopaths here. But I'll leave that for you to discover...
Bikes don't make things any better. They want to be cars, but they run red lights, meander all over the road, and think they can just ride across the crosswalk in front of green light traffic.
The majority of this town is out for themselves, and Lord have mercy if you try to correct their behavior.
Suffice to say, I'm ready to leave. Campus life was a great experience, but actually living here is awful. I've been suggested to that Bellingham, WA would be a good alternative - but after reading reviews, it's essentially Missoula with state tax.
NW nomad | Missoula, MT