3/2/2023 0 Comments Sspx idahoHowever, it’s very clear that far more of the migrants to Idaho are conservative than those to, say, Colorado. I won’t hazard a guess at what the conservative-liberal split is. Idaho is also experiencing in migration of political and religious conservatives. As the prices go up in places like Denver or wherever, pretty much anyplace with an airport is going to become a destination. In contrast to the Eastern US, which has a huge number of cities, the West is much more sparsely populated. Why is Idaho booming? My gut feel is that it is related to the paucity of cities in the inland West. Moscow is the proverbial blue dot in a red state, though does have a significant sized conservative Evangelical population as well. (Pullman is similar but the school is bigger). In essence, Moscow feels like a real small town but with a population that’s educated. This keeps it from overwhelming the town. The University of Idaho is the state’s flagship, but is relatively small and not prestigious. Then you have directional schools and liberal arts college. In the Midwest, you have state flagship schools that are very large, wealthy, and at least semi-prestigious. The feel is very different from Midwestern college towns. These two small towns are about ten minutes apart, and each is home to a major university, Washington State and the University of Idaho respectively. The Pullman, WA-Moscow, ID area is very unique place. It also has its share of decay, however, and a visible downtown homeless population. Today the two are about the same size, but Spokane has a much more impressive historic fabric, as well as interesting geography within the city. For one thing, it was a more substantial city than Boise historically, with 181,600 residents in 1960. As a Midwesterner, Spokane was much more resonant with me than Boise. I have not visited Coeur d’Alene but did get to check out Spokane. Northern Idaho is also well known as a haven for the hard right. In addition to a fairly conservative diocese in Spokane, the area has drawn a number of people who are part of the FSSP and SSPX movements. The Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area is drawing large number of very conservative Catholics. I’ve never been to Idaho Falls, but the city is supposedly heavily Mormon. What’s interesting about the Idaho boom is that that the character of the cities and who is moving there is quite different. According to Wikipedia, it gets to 100 degrees eight times on average, and has 51 days over 90 degrees. Boise also does get cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I was there at a bad time of year, but it’s very obvious that the region has few trees, for example, whereas some other areas in Idaho and Montana are heavily forested and gorgeous. There are mountains close by, but the area is not especially scenic, especially in contrast to northern Idaho. (Today the city is 229,000 and the metro area 750,000). So the historic areas of the city are pretty small geographically, and reputedly very expensive. In other words, it was basically a small town. The city of Boise only had about 34,500 in 1960. It’s a fairly generic sprawlburg whose built environment is almost entirely post-war. However, I did not find Boise an impressive city. This includes not just middle class people, but those bringing seven and eight figures in financial assets with them. A large number of people from California are moving there. I’ve been to Idaho in the past but recently visited Boise for the first time, and also stopped in Spokane, WA and Moscow, ID.īoise has carved out a reputation as a hot destination, and statistically it is. From 2018 to 2019, the most recent available data, Coeur d’Alene ranked 7th among all metro areas in population growth, Boise ranked 8th, and Idaho Falls ranked 18th. Of course it is easy to get high percentages on a small base, but the Idaho growth story is real. Idaho has recently been the fastest growing state in the country, with population growth of 2.1% last year.
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