Why some Western gateway towns boom while others fade: University of Arizona study sorts them into 8 types
A new framework helps small towns near national parks, ski areas and other natural attractions anticipate growth pressures and plan for them
Sedona draws so many visitors and wealthy second-home buyers that local workers struggle to find housing. Ajo, a former mining town in southwestern Arizona, faces the opposite worry: that, like other remote towns, it could become another abandoned small town.
Both are gateway communities, small towns near natural attractions such as national parks, ski resorts and scenic rivers. A new study led by a University of Arizona researcher helps explain why these places follow such different paths and offers a tool to help them plan for what’s coming.
The study, published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, was led by Philip Stoker, an associate professor of urban planning in the University of Arizona College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. His co-authors are Lindsey Romaniello, a doctoral student at the University of Utah, and Danya Rumore, an associate professor of practice at Utah State University and founder and co-director of its Gateway and Natural Amenity Region Initiative.
“A gateway community is a small town or community that is near natural amenities, like national parks, ski resorts, scenic rivers or any other natural area that attracts visitors and new residents,” Stoker said.
The researchers identified 1,858 such communities across the Western U.S., defined as towns of 150 to 25,000 people within 10 miles of a major natural area and more than 15 miles by road from an urban area. Many face “big city” problems despite their size, including housing costs, traffic and strained public services, often without the planning staff to address them.
“These communities are generally small and lack planning and development resources that let them form networks of communities to share experiences and best practices,” Stoker said. “We hope that by being able to identify similar ‘types’ of communities, they can see that they are not alone and that they could share resources and best practices.”
Three levers, eight types
The study sorts gateway communities using three traits: how appealing their nearby natural attractions are, how easily people can reach them and how constrained they are from growing, whether by geography, land designations or local policy. Rating a town high or low on each trait places it in one of eight types.
Exclusive destinations such as Sedona; Jackson, Wyoming; and Vail, Colorado, are highly appealing, easy to reach and hemmed in, a combination that drives extreme housing costs. Expanding edge towns such as Queen Creek absorb overflow growth from nearby metro areas. Rustic and remote communities such as Ajo see little tourism and tend to identify more as traditional rural towns. Other types include urbanizing gateway communities, oasis communities, latent growth communities, corridor communities and potential rural hubs.
The team first tried a purely statistical approach using census data, but the results grouped large resort towns with small, little-known communities.
“This taught us that we could not rely on only quantitative data,” Stoker said. “A purely statistical approach would be objective, but by doing a cluster analysis we saw that this wouldn’t work. Instead, we need to incorporate qualitative assessments, like the appeal of an amenity, to fully group these communities.”
Choices that shape a town’s future
Because communities can influence all three traits, the typology also shows how their choices can change their path. Stoker pointed to Moab, Utah.
“We see how a community like Moab invested heavily in advertisements and tourism boosterism,” he said. “Despite being four hours away from the nearest metropolitan area and international airport, Moab grew tremendously. In fact, you could argue they grew too much and are now dealing with real pressures on tourism capacity and overcrowding.”
He said the study’s main message for local leaders is that they have more influence than they may think.
“I would want them to recognize that deliberate decisions can help them shape and guide their community to their desired vision,” Stoker said. “They can’t change everything, but this paper highlights a few ways that they can feel, and be, more in control of the development pressures that will shape their community in the future.”
Stoker said the framework’s consistency surprised him. “I was surprised how well it worked once we found our three key levers,” he said. “It just made sense and continued to work as we applied it to our different experiences in communities.”
The researchers say the typology fits Intermountain West communities best and still needs testing in coastal areas. Next, they plan to ask practitioners, public officials and visitors to try it out and judge whether their communities are grouped accurately. The team also has papers in development on housing and short-term rentals in these communities.
For Stoker, the work is personal.
“I grew up with family in these types of communities and would spend my free time visiting gateway communities,” he said. “I love the outdoors, and in order to get to my favorite places in the U.S., you have to go through these gateway communities. For many of them, the communities themselves became a core reason I loved visiting these places.”
