Regarding Telluride, Colorado

The citizens of most towns seem to be always clamoring to have the stores and restaurants they see in other towns.

That’s not true of Telluride (population 2,221).

According to Antonya Nelson, the story of Telluride is not the “story of a town that made deals with developers, forsook its roots . . . and sold its soul.”

Telluride is “a beautiful place in which to wander, its gardens and houses well kept and properly scaled, the mountains themselves, protecting the little city in their bowl, forever breathtaking. Most of the stores are locally owned. There are no traffic lights, strip malls, box stores or massive parking lots.”

And its citizens seem to like it that way.

When it comes to change, sometimes what’s most important is knowing what should never change.

To read more about Telluride, see Smithsonian, August 2009, p. 11.