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button. Oregon's spoofing James G. Elaine Society* says of its own "Magnet" state: "You can always tell when it's summer in Oregon—the rain gets warm." Oregon Governor Tom McCall is even more hard-nosed. "The concept of earlier decades was population growth at all costs," says McCall. "Well, that cost is now proving too much to pay, and we want none of that in Oregon." McCall started to tell tourists two years ago, "Come visit us, but for heaven's sake don't come here to live." Now he adds, "Soon we're probably going to have to say 'Don't even visit.' "
Colorado is also feeling the pinch of oversell. Through deliberate policy, Boulder has preserved the towering "flatiron" slabs to the west that give the city its name, but in all other directions it is bubbling over. Members of a Zero Population Growth chapter in Boulder, which once gloried in the title "Nicest Small Town in the U.S.," recently proposed a charter amendment that would set a ceiling of 100,000 on the population (current pop. 72,000). Though the amendment was voted down, concern is spreading. Denver now has more cars per capita than Los Angeles, and many Denverites are looking forward with dread to the 1976 Winter Olympics. A proposal to withhold state funds for the Games will appear on the ballot in November. Says Colorado Democratic
Representative Richard Lamm: "We are beginning to overcome a whole heritage of mindless Chamber of Commerce promotionalism."
The scare has even spread to Montana, which has grown only 2.9% in the past ten years. The signs are still friendly here: WELCOME TO BOZEMAN —15,000 FRIENDLY PEOPLE AND A FEW
SOREHEADS. But some already see the schlock over the horizon. One group of property owners is now suing former TV Newscaster Chet Huntley's Big Sky of Montana, Inc., two federal agencies and a railroad to block a land exchange that they claim will allow private homes to be built on public forest land.
Entry Fees. Environmentalists have managed to turn one of the West's chronic disadvantages, lack of water, into a means of fighting the developers. New Mexicans are now pushing for legislation that would give them the legal wrench necessary to tighten the faucet on their scarce water supply, thereby limiting expansion. Think-tank experts envision even more extreme solutions. Rand Corp. Demographer Peter Morrison believes that the Federal Government may have to adopt population-distribution policies; if not, localities may resort to residency permits and migrant entry fees to prevent being "loved to death."
While the experts ponder, the current dilemma remains and can be read on the backs of the ever-multiplying automobiles that choke Western city streets. The license plates still brag about BIG SKY COUNTRY and LAND OF
ENCHANTMENT, but the bumper stickers inches away now plead SAVE THIS ENVIRONMENT—KEEP OUT or DON'T CALIFORNICATE COLORADO. The odds are good, of course, that the stickers were applied by people who recently immigrated themselves. As Brant Calkin, a Santa Fe Sierra Club official observes: "Everybody wants to be the last son of a bitch to move in."