Reviews & Comments
Kalispell, MT
Unaffordable, overcrowded, and losing its charm -
1/17/2022My 2022 updated review, only touching on the recent changes.
Kalispell is no longer affordable for most middle class people. The world discovered us during COVID and thousands of people moved here in 2020, and probably more in 2021. In an area this size, that is a MASSIVE flood of people. Add that to our seasonal tourism and you get a mess.
Housing prices rose 21% in 2021. My 3BR house I bought for $300k in 2017 is now estimated to be worth $580k. Rentals are absurdly difficult to find and overpriced. I have seen larger houses here renting for more than they would in California. So many people bought properties to become Airbnb or just summer places that only rent a few months in winter. If you have a pet it's almost impossible to rent.
It now consistently takes 4+ hours to get your car registered at the court house. Five years ago the wait was maybe 20 minutes.
The $16/hr job market is hot but employees are burned out everywhere. I have seen some of the most incompetent employees here this last year because businesses cannot find anyone. Sometimes businesses close early or even for days at a time. This weekend I ordered two coffee orders and both were screwed up as to be undrinkable. That had never happened at that place.
Traffic here now feels similar to Whitefish. I used to be relieved driving home from Whitefish to Kalispell but now it has the same traffic vibe, and so many new drivers from Washington, Texas, and other states who bring their aggressive and careless driving habits.
Sprawl is happening as city planners rubber stamp developments which are either densely packed single-family neighborhoods with no open space or affordable housing apartments which are beginning to blot the skyline views. These new developments will soon devour much of the gorgeous farmland of the West Valley area.
Healthcare is in a crisis here obviously due to the flood of new residents. There are maybe three child psychiatrists here taking patients, one of which is awful, and the other is aloof and uninspired. The third one which has no reviews isn't seeing a new patient until seven months from now.
This valley attracts mediocre doctors who cannot make it in more competitive areas. I have literally had to override two doctors on medications based on my own research, and was proven correct in each instance.
The best doctors are not taking new patients, which means a GP who is taking new patients may be on of the worst doctors you have ever had. I know the worst doctor I ever had was in this town. And because of the opioid epidemic, good luck getting an effective painkiller. My grandfather fell and got stitches and a cracked neck bone and they released him from the ER the same day with no pain killers.
Glacier National Park now uses an annoying ticketing reservation system where you have to sign up early. This year it only gives you a three-day pass. With thousands of permanent new residents also using the park, these tickets are going to be even more scarce. Even Glacier National Park can be ruined by overcrowding, so I understand why they had to institute this system, but it's a sign of the times.
Unfortunately what is happening to Kalispell is happening all across America as people flee the places ruined by crowds and politics and then move to the smaller and slower paced places and then proceed to ruin them by overcrowding and by voting for the same policies that ruined the places they fled from. The bummer is that the governments in these small towns simply lack the training and skill to manage this level of growth.
Kalispell, MT
Updated Kalispell review and response to Sora -
9/13/2017Sora has responded to my frank review of Kalispell from 6/2016 with all the denial and hyperbole of someone who sounds more like a local realtor than a new resident. If she isn't a realtor, then she must be buried in her honeymoon phase somewhere in a nice planned neighborhood.
While my views of Kalispell residents have softened, I stand 100% behind my claim that Kalispell is not Mayberry and that there are many better small towns to raise a family especially if you are used to middle-class suburbia and seek a more positive and energetic social environment.
Many of Sora's claims are absurd, such as Kalispell having cheap housing and good paying jobs. Check the Flathead County school website and see that a local elementary school prestigious office administrator job pays ~$13/hr with insurance costs starting at $300 per month. Surprisingly, you can also earn ~$13/hr cooking at Panda Express. Now take that wage and try to find a 3BR rental in Kalispell. Right now the average 3BR lease (when you can find one) is about $1400/m. If that is affordable to Sora then she probably is better suited to the crepes and art galleries of resort-taxed Whitefish.
There are major social problems in Kalispell. There are 148 registered sex offenders living in town. We came from a middle-class town (we were renters, not rich uppers like Sora assumes) from another state that had FIVE sex offenders living in a city three times the size of Kalispell. Do the math and ask the questions, if you dare...
Our child knows a network of homeless middle- and high-school students who occupy abandoned properties because they want to stay out of the foster care system. Sora will say I made that up.
We finally realized that after having the last four fast food meal orders screwed up (including an epic 20 minute wait at Taco Bell) that the people working there are either retarded or high. I am sorry, but it really is that bad sometimes, and the reasons for it may be painful to admit.
I could go on, but Sora is contradicting facts like the published suicide and alcohol statistics, simply based on her feelings as an "artist" who obviously refuses to see reality even when she runs into it. People like Sora who brush aside statistics should stick to their art and shut up about harsh realities as experienced by those of us who must live in them.
For those who are interested in living in the real Kalispell, I say again this is a great place for a rugged self-starting individualists who adore nature and outdoor activities but are sick of government intrusion. Montana truly is one of the last best places, but just be prepared for months of crappy gray winters and smoky summers in this part of the state.
While people can be friendly, they are not cosmopolitan, which is to expected in a town this size. There just aren't that many here, so it may take a lot of effort and luck to break into a friend group unless you grow up here. Again, society won't automagically prop you up here. You must be a strong individual who pulls his own bootstraps and finds his footing.
What makes Kalispell (and Montana) special is largely about what it is not. If you can forgive its rough edges and carve your own niche, there is no place like it in this country. Nature dominates human culture here. If that appeals to you, then come learn what you are made of as you experience the pros and cons of that beautiful and harsh reality.
But if you happen to be an hysterically optimistic artist who sees no evil, Kalispell truly is paradise. Either way, load up on Vitamin D and beware those drunk drivers.
Whitefish, MT
Good if you have to live in the Flathead Valley -
2/28/2017Whitefish is a resort town with a resort tax, cleaner and better managed that neighboring Kalispell, but also more expensive to live in. Still, if you're from a more cosmopolitan area and crave a little more culture and liberal benefits, Whitefish may be your best bet in the Flathead Valley (see Big Fork too). If you don't ski then prepare to watch a lot of Netflix during the brutally long and gray winters.
Kalispell, MT
Good for single rugged individualists, but not fam -
6/6/2016Kalispell is an unhappy town in a beautiful setting. Its residents tend to behave like the deer: you see them everywhere, but they are skittish. You constantly ask yourself how people can be so unhappy in such a beautiful, wide-open place far from the maddening crowd? I moved here with my family 1+ year ago and only just met my neighbor because he lost something on my property.
We learned in the past year are that Kalispell has major social issues from multi-generational poverty and substance abuse. There are a lot of drug addicts and alcoholics and children of them. You get the feeling, from meeting the older natives, that it was a much nicer town a few decades ago but even they will admit that people here do keep to themselves.
Kalispell is small enough that your children will be exposed to the sort of poverty and social issues that in bigger cities you might have been economically segregated from. While this may be more "real" it can be extremely unpleasant and traumatic for your children to participate in it. I'm talking homeless children, children in group homes, kids who have sex at age 10, etc. We were advised the only way to get around the good kids and parents was to put our kids into sports. The few private schools here are packed. That being said, the teachers seem to really care and the class sizes are small, but there are few open house type events and we really have no sense what our child is learning.
One of the positives about Kalispell is the "live and let live" mentality where they tolerate and do not intrude on other people's business. For individualists this is very freeing, and it seems to extend even to children who can dress pretty much how they want and other kids do not bother them. But the dark side is they just seem to turn away and not face the problems head on. I think this mentality is why they are very defensive about the problems here.
Kalispell is not conservative in the sense that Idaho or Texas is conservative. I would describe it as rugged libertarian with a naive veneer of liberalism. They haven't had their jobs taken by illegal aliens here so they assume anything negative against immigrants is "racist". Kalispell is one of the few cities left in America where the "jobs Americans won't do" are all done by Americans. Fast food, landscaping, construction--all Americans.
A local teacher told us that seasonal affective disorder plays a major role in shaping people here, and I agree. The winters are brutal--not from cold or snow--but from the endless gray. Kalispell averages 151 sunny days a year, whereas Seattle averages 152! Seattle has tanning booths on every corner just for people to survive SAD but in Kalispell the tanning booth equivalent are the tiny casino bars on every corner.
Keep in mind too that Montana is 4th in the nation for alcohol consumption and 3rd for suicide. I cannot speak for the rest of Montana, but on my last flight to Kalispell, the flight attendant who had 15-years of experience, told me the friendliest people she has met during her career were from Montana, EXCEPT for those from Kalispell. She told me that, and I agree with her. Another resident told us she commutes to Kalispell from nearby Big Fork because people are much friendlier there.
I know I have painted a bleak picture, but it cost me a lot of money and time to discover this, and I wanted to share it with families who imagine Kalispell to be Mayberry because they are taken by the scenery and quaint downtown. Yes you can get a big house on a huge lot against a river. Yes deer roam through it and bald eagles fly overhead, but when your children are crying bored lamenting they can't find one friend to come over to play, and your neighbors won't even look at you, it doesn't amount to much.
If I were a single person not looking for love, but a devoted lover of nature, Kalispell would be great. People do not mess with you. There is not an artificial, wealth-generated manufactured culture. You can have a loaded gun in your car when you get stopped for speeding and the cops won't blink an eye. Nature is everywhere in big, often scary, proportions. There aren't laws and regulations strangling you from every angle, and aside from housing it is cheap to live here with no sales tax.
When we leave, I will surely miss the scenery, the "breathing room" that so much open space gives me. I also realize that Kalispell does have something most American towns do not. It is that sense of being more of an individual, of having more personal space and freedom to be who you are. I am sure over a decade or so, that would all seep into my bones, and perhaps balance out my need to for more human interaction and friendly banter. But our kids deserve a better educational and social environment than this, so we're off to find Mayberry 2.0.