RE: The Durango Herald’s Saturday editorial on wages and housing in our beloved town. Indeed, from a personal perspective, I am here because of my own tipping point in Southern California as client companies – in the run-up to The Great Recession of 2008 – reduced marketing budgets while eliminating jobs held by my client contacts. It was like watching a slow-motion trainwreck. Thus, I identify with author Malcolm Gladwell’s views on tipping points and to the adroit commentary in this editorial.

And while the mentioned wage and housing adjustments are great steps forward for our local workforce, as well as their employers, housing costs will remain a serious threat to those facing their own tipping points. The reason is more than the simplistic free market forces of supply and demand. Fact: The primary driver of Durango’s runaway housing costs, as experienced in so many hot real estate markets, is reflected in the all-cash purchases by newly-minted retirees, along with escapees from the rising cost of living in big cities.

Advising our workforce to accept longer commutes is not the answer. Affordable housing is.

In the meantime, as climate change-driven droughts turn reservoirs into puddles, as the Front Range attempts to purloin the Colorado River for its own expansion, new housing will have to accept drought-related regulations in the quest for water.

David Ohman

Durango