Aspen is a majestic place. But what would the whole world look like if it was literally a scaled-up copy of Aspen? Imagine: Everyone waking up to snow in the morning, cruising down freshly-groomed runs, hearing the ski patrol bombing Highlands… It sounds pretty idyllic. Aspen, though, is not just skiing; it has a vibrant (housing) economy, several rivers, high fire danger, and an International Mountain Bicycling Association-certified Gold bike park. (Yes, that’s a big deal.) Oh, and taxes.
Compared to the United States, Aspen homes cost 779% as much. The median Aspen home sells for $2,800,000. The world has vastly different housing prices, but the median US house costs around $359,000. Even the most expensive country in the world, Luxembourg, has a median price of only €850,000 or $880,000. That is still less than a third of Aspen housing prices.
And in Aspen, there are plenty of places to skyrocket that number such as this retreat. Yes, $108 million is only achievable for a very tiny percentage of Americans. Yes, it is a price equal to what seventy-two Americans will make in a lifetime. Before tax. But it does have an outdoor pool, eleven bedrooms, and an objective coolness.
That brings me to my next point: income. Maybe money doesn’t buy happiness – but it can buy houses. Could the average human afford the $108 million mansion if they made as much as an Aspen resident? The answer, unfortunately, is a hard no. In Aspen, the average (median, which is less skewed by ultra-high numbers) resident makes $102,089 per year. If every Aspen-wage person worked for 40 years and saved every penny for their mansion, they would be 4% of the way there upon retirement. They would need to work (and not pay taxes) for 1,000 years to afford the house. However, the median down payment in the United States is 15%, or $54,000. Aspen Americans would be able to afford the average down payment on a home… until the 779% price increase is factored in. Factored in as $370,000 more. Like a lot of Americans, unfortunately, many people wouldn’t be able to afford houses. New taxes aim to make Aspen housing more affordable, though, eventually turning Aspen-Earth into a paradise. Almost.
Why almost? One word: wildfires. Aspen only has two ways out via car, Highway 82 in the Glenwood direction and Independence Pass, and emergency planners have concluded that “we’re all going to die” if a wildfire blocks off both exits. No, that’s not a real quote. In this situation, we have to picture what Aspen-Earth would look like. Would it be like the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion, where each set of humans live in their own identical zone? In that situation, a wildfire would only compromise a small part of the world. Would the Aspen-Earth be spread out, and Aspen Mountain would be an entire continent? I like that idea a lot, so I’ll go with it.
So in this perfect, totally not-too-good-to-be-true world, there would be huge swaths of Aspen-Earth consumed by wildfires. Take the recent Crown Mountain wildfire, which burned 5 acres. In the Aspen-Earth, that would have burned an area almost the size of Mexico. Overkill, perhaps? Oh, and there are no oceans to fight the fire on Aspen-Earth. There’s too much skiing to surf anyway.
And that skiing? It would be almost as good as Vail. (Kidding!) Aspen is ranked as, and I can attest to the fact that it is, one of the best ski resorts in the world. That ranking adds up all of the mountains – Snowmass is the best for families, for example, while Highlands is seen as a hard-skiing retreat. The average annual snowfall on Aspen-Earth would be about 309”, or 25 feet of snow. The water crisis would be a nonissue (assuming everything scaled up properly). Besides the fires, it sounds pretty… arcadian (no, I swear I’m not using a thesaurus). Especially because Aspen’s population density is more than the world at large, so the world could have an even larger population.
And what of food, manufacturing, and everything else that Aspen trucks in? Matsuhisa, for example, is certainly not fishing in Reudi Reservoir. Aspen-Earth would have to continue transporting everything in – maybe from another planet, because I hear martian lobster is to die for. That would be prohibitively expensive even for Aspen, though, so people would probably have to build a manufacturing base. And there’s a perfect place for it: Tiehack parking lot, where everyone parks despite the “skier parking only” signs. If skiers aren’t using it, then what better place for a manufacturing lot?
Assuming food could be handled, and everything worked out, there would still be one more problem: happiness. According to the Supreme Authority of All World Knowledge, or “Reddit” for Gen-Zers, 70% of people would rather go to the beach than the mountains. Those 30% would be overjoyed. The majority wouldn’t be happy… but beginners would certainly learn the difference between “Let’s go ski Buttermilk!” and “Let’s go ski the Hero’s glades!” very quickly.
