I was driving down North 7th Street the other day, heading home after picking up some supplies from the Co-op. It’s a route I’ve taken hundreds of times since we moved here back in ‘06. Things have certainly changed.

What used to be a little brick house, maybe with a porch swing, is now a big, tall building. It has lots of windows and looks quite modern, they call them “luxury condos.” I guess they’re for people who like that sort of thing. I just remember when it was a regular house, like the one I bought.

It got me thinking about all the new buildings popping up. They’re everywhere, and they’re all so… efficient with space. They squeeze in as many units as they can. I heard someone call them “shoe boxes” once, and I thought that was a funny way to put it, though I suppose they’re much bigger than actual shoes.

I just wonder who these shoe boxes are for. You see them online, and the prices are something. It makes you scratch your head a bit, trying to figure out how anyone manages to afford them. It’s certainly more than what I paid for my place, and mine has a yard.

My neighbor, Brenda, she’s lived here even longer than me, since the 90s. She says it reminds her of when she first moved here and everyone thought Bozeman was getting too big. She just shakes her head and says, “They ain’t seen nothing yet.”

I think about the traffic, too. When you add all these new homes, even tiny ones, that means more cars. My drive to the Co-op takes a little longer these days, especially around 5 o’clock. Everyone’s just trying to get where they’re going, I suppose.

I don’t want to complain, because I love Bozeman. It’s why we moved here. The mountains are still there, and the air still smells like pine sometimes, depending on which way the wind blows. It’s just, things are different now.

I remember when you could buy a place with a bit of land for what seemed like a normal amount of money. Now, people are buying these small units for prices that would have bought you a whole ranch in 2006. It just makes the math not quite math for a regular person.

I guess progress marches on, as they say. But sometimes you just wish that progress could include a few more actual homes, the kind with a little breathing room, that folks can afford without having to win the lottery. It would be nice to see some of those again.

Howard Benchpress owns a home he bought in 2006 for what he describes as ‘a normal amount of money.’ He brings this up frequently.