#intermountainwest

The prioritization of experience by members of the PIMC engaged in rural gentrification is an example of what Liechty refers to as a 'class- cultural practice''...Montana newcomers enact[] through their legal, political, and/or social actions their perspective on proper land-use practices and policies...; in the process, they are engaged in the restructuring of the 'New' West Archipelago as a postindustrial cultural space....changes written into the terrain through the importation and concentration by newcomers of a different land-use philosophy and landscape/architecture aesthetics (than that of the members of the previously dominant regime) provide graphic evidence of the relative success of the PIMC vis-a-vis the industrial middle and working classes.

Missoula’s landscapes depict powerful consequences of rural gentrification such as the emergence of prestigious neighborhoods and new housing tastes, creation of “western living” as a positional good, conspicuous consumption, privatization of open land and the hillside, and a steep escalation in real estate prices, which have led to considerable community debates.

the West is earnestly being reshaped in the California image, something that residents of the Pacific Northwest have complained about since the 1970s...ironically, the process has two dimensions: a repudiation of California, and a simultaneous insistence that a better California can be found elsewhere.