ecosophia | The Coast is Toast! (Reply)

Two data points reached me today, both from the somewhat rarefied world of the occult book trade. Both of them, however, are storm petrels flying ahead of a hurricane I've been expecting for some time.

Data point #1 came via Reddit -- there are several occult-themed subreddits where I lurk fairly regularly, as a way of keeping tabs on what's happening out there in the occult scene. A poster there announced, with a certain amount of shock, that Fields Books has just moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Wisconsin.

You have to have known your way around the Bay area occult scene before 2013 to understand just how seismic this is. Fields Books was literally the best occult bookstore on the west coast, and one of the best in the US. For most of a century its storefront at 1419 Polk Street in San Francisco was the go-to place for serious occult literature. In 2013 skyrocketing rents forced them to close the store, and Fields became an online presence only, but remained in the Bay area. Now it's bailed out of California altogether and is settling into comfortable new quarters on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Data point #2 came via an email from Miskatonic Books, the publisher and fine bookseller that's brought out the first volume of my book The Dolmen Arch and is on schedule to bring out the second volume next month. Since its founding it's been located in Oregon, not far from Portland. That's not where the new volume will be released, though. Miskatonic Books is moving to Montana; it'll be based out of Bozeman for the near future while the proprietor and his family find permanent digs.

I've been expecting for some time to hear that people on the cutting edge of creativity -- not the self-proclaimed "cultural creatives" of the privileged classes, mind you, but the people who are actually doing new and interesting things -- were abandoning the overpriced, dilapidated urban sores that used to be pleasant and inexpensive cities along the west coast. Now it's happening. I don't happen to know the reasons why the proprietors of Fields and Miskatonic uprooted themselves and their businesses and fled to greener pastures, but I think I can guess at least part of the logic behind the move -- and there will be plenty of other businesses making the same decision now, and in the near future.

Half a century or so from now the cities of the west coast will offer the same kind of opportunities for urban homesteaders that a lot of Rust Belt cities offer now. Until then, though, they'll feature skyrocketing taxes, skyrocketing crime, collapsing infrastructure, total dysfunction on the part of local and state governments -- all the things those of us who lived through the 1970s recall hearing from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and other rust belt cities on their way down. Those who don't fancy these things might want to consider getting out while they can still extract some of the paper value of any real estate they happen to be stuck with.