Фестиваль Sundance в 2027 году расколол Блудер на два лагеря: богатых инвесторов и уставших местных работников

By David Friedlander The arrival of the Sundance Film Festival in 2027 has split Boulder into two distinct camps with two opposing perspectives on the film festival. I think Camp One is overwhelmingly positive, proclaiming Sundance as an unquestionable, unalloyed benefit to Boulder and its residents. Hotels and Airbnbs will be booked. Restaurants, tchotchke shops and parking garages will be full. Money will be spent. People in this camp are generally older and own stuff — Airbnb-able homes, hotels, restaurants, parking lots, etc. These people, because they are wealthy, tend to see money as a panacea for every existential and civic woe, regardless of how that money is distributed and spent. For this camp, a windfall from Sundance will be another win in a long line of wins. Camp Two is, I think, overwhelmingly negative about Sundance’s impact on Boulder. People in this camp are generally younger and exhausted from trying to establish or maintain their footholds in Boulder and its economy. They’re the unlanded service workers, laborers, independent food producers, teachers, nurses, gig workers and other Boulder workers for whom wages, not investment dividends, pay their bills. These are the people who actually run Boulder — ringing people up at the register, sweeping floors, taking care of children and elders — and their cultural and economic value have been repeatedly undermined by the influx of global elites who don’t balk at $20 appetizers at oligarch-owned restaurants or $3 million 1,500 square foot Mapleton Hill bungalows. These are the same global elites Sundance is welcoming with open arms and Airbnbs. In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m a member of Camp Two. And I see Camp One’s Sundance enthusiasm as myopic and existing in a vacuum of the real problems affecting Boulder’s most at-need populations. First, Sundance will negatively impact the city’s already-lamentable state of economic inequality. Evidence of this can be easily extracted from Sundance’s former home, Park City, Utah. According to Park City’s public radio, “A plurality of non-resident (Sundance) visitors reported a household income of $300,000 or more.” These rich folks drove up home prices and demand for second homes in Park City, according to Compass’ Zach Zelder Team. This will happen in Boulder too. Our already outrageous housing costs will increase, making Boulder even less hospitable to citizens earning local wages. It will increase the ranks of the unhoused, since housing costs are a primary driver of homelessness. There will be more empty primary and second homes, adding to Boulder’s approximate 1,000-4,000 vacant housing units. What would actually help Boulder’s economy is making and selling stuff here to people who live here. This kind of economic development is entirely possible and happening, though without the scale or fanfare of Sundance. I live and work on a farm, and most of what we sell is produced in, and purchased by those living in Boulder County. Trident, my favorite Boulder cafe, is cooperatively run and owned. When I purchase a coffee or book there, a substantial share of profits go to the worker-owners, most of whom live in Boulder and are active contributors to its real culture. Sundance, on the other hand, will turn Boulder into a waystation for global wealth and the generic, luxury-branded “culture” they worship. (Taking bets on how long it’ll be before Hermès opens a shop on Pearl.) Camp One became likely wealthy, not through investing in local businesses serving locals, but through nonlocal capital sources, investments and accumulated assets. Windfalls from Sundance will enable these already-rich folks to obtain more of the assets that made them rich in the first place: more rental properties in Phoenix, Nvidia stocks, Bitcoin, whatever. Outside of overtime hours for service workers, Sundance will be a financial dud for Camp Two. The reasoning that Sundance money will, ahem, trickle down to middle- and low-income Boulderites is as fallacious as it was during the Reagan Administration. Then there are the problems that will actually determine Boulder’s future — ones Sundance will do nothing to solve, ones it’ll likely make worse by dumping resources on the sort of polluting, classist institutions that that are driving economic inequality and environmental destruction. When wildfire smoke clogs the sky, when pine beetles devour our forests, when temperatures soar and reservoirs run dry, pandering to a small, pathologically wealthy population buttressing what’s arguably a dying artistic medium will seem shortsighted. If only city leaders were as enthusiastic about protecting Boulder’s working citizens and climatic equilibrium as they were siphoning money from wealthy cinephile tourists for two weeks of the year. But alas, they’re not. And it seems like Sundance is happening, regardless of what working Boulderites think about it. But just because the sun dancers are coming, it doesn’t mean we have to dance or accept the narrative that the festival will benefit Boulder and its citizens. Just like CU South and the new hotels on The Hill — projects serving investor and tourist interests, not locals and their interests — it won’t. I mean, really, Boulder has enough sun. What we really need is rain. David Friedlander is a housing innovation consultant and founder of Run Haus, a running and performance-oriented community platform. He lives in unincorporated Boulder County. To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email.