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Anchorage Gets Sophisticated

5K views 21 replies 19 participants last post by  goschio 
#1 ·
Designer jeans in Anchorage? On the brink of the wild, Alaska's largest city grows up
19 February 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - In a city where fashion sense has always played a distant second to staying warm, a cluster of boutiques in the budding "SoNo" district, south of Alaska's only Nordstrom department store, does a surprisingly brisk business in $50 (euro34) body lotions and $180 (euro122) designer jeans.

The homage to New York City's trendy SoHo district -- the area south of Manhattan's Houston Street -- is just one of the many signs that this once-unruly oil-boom town at the edge of the American wilderness has been tamed.

In some respects, Anchorage could even be called sophisticated.

"Anchorage has really changed since I moved here 30 years ago," said Ellen Arvold, owner of the Out of the Closet luxury consignment shop, where leopard-print Prada ballet flats and Louis Vuitton handbags are big sellers. "People don't think there's a market for us, but there really is."

Strip malls have replaced strip clubs, big-box stores draw more customers than bars, and residential neighborhoods have supplanted the RV parks that once sprawled across the state's biggest city, which now has a population of about 270,000. The city is the economic capital of a state more than twice the size of France.

"Anchorage has kind of grown up," said longtime resident Charles Wohlforth, who writes the annual Alaska guide for the Frommer's travel series. "It's left its adolescence and is becoming more of a mature city."

The tumultuous years of oil booms and busts in the 1970s and '80s have given way to two decades of steady growth, and Anchorage's economy has expanded to include burgeoning retail, health care and tourism industries.

The influx of non-oil, non-military jobs has altered the city's demographics, making it less like a frontier town.

At one time, men far outnumbered women in Alaska. But in 2006, the city had 102 men for every 100 women, state demographer Eddie Hunsinger said. The ratio for the rest of Alaska was 108 to 100.

Leese Lloyd and Ashley Brusven, young baristas who grew up in Anchorage, said the notion that the city has an overabundance of men is an outdated stereotype.

"Where are they?" Brusven joked as customers in the adjacent New Sagaya City Market surveyed stuffed grape leaves, caprese, baklava and other un-Alaskan foods.

Racial and ethnic diversity also have risen as Alaska natives from poor rural villages and substantial numbers of Hispanics, Pacific islanders and Asians come to find work or join family members. In the city's public schools, nonwhite students reached an all-time high of 50 percent last fall, with the 48,000 students speaking 84 different languages.

Bill Ho'opai, who moved here from Hawaii in 1982, referred to his working-class and ethnically diverse neighborhood as "the Ellis Island of Anchorage," a reference to the welcoming station for immigrants to New York at the height of the rush of European immigrants to the U.S.

Anchorage is also reshaping its modest skyline with a $100 million (euro68 million) museum expansion, a $93 million (euro63 million) convention center and a parking garage with room for 830 vehicles. Companies are putting up new hotels and glass-plated office buildings.

Development has its critics. Many Alaskans see Anchorage as increasingly out of sync with the rest of the state, prone to sprawl, traffic, crime and the other usual urban ills.

"Rural Alaskans have a love-hate relationship with Anchorage," said Stephen Haycox, a history professor at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. "What they hate is that people in Anchorage don't have a good understanding of rural Alaska, which is a truly different world. But they love that Anchorage has neat things to buy and neat things to do."

The growth has triggered a steady exodus north to the state's first suburban community, the farm and sled-dog country of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. About 2,000 people leave Anchorage each year for Mat-Su.

Anchorage's latest promotional campaign, called "Big Wild Life," depicts city life as a mix of bold outdoorsy activities and urban comforts. The Web site of the Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau highlights the city's spas, opera and symphony, and downplays the long, cold winters by describing Anchorage as "a city of lights and flowers."

While Anchorage is no longer rugged enough to impress those searching for the picture of the north left by the early 20th century American novelist Jack London, some aspects of classic Alaska remain. Winter temperatures can dip to minus-20 Fahrenheit (minus-29 Celsius) and daylight dwindles after five hours in December. The peaks of the Chugach Mountains form an imposing backdrop, a striking reminder of the wilderness beyond.

Grizzlies, black bears and moose are still a common sight. Moose browse along the popular paved trail system, trot through cookie-cutter condo developments and occasionally attempt to navigate fast-moving traffic.

In November, a bull moose tangled his rack in a municipal Christmas light display before strolling into the courtyard at a lounge and dance club in SoNo. With the dead string of lights dangling from his noggin, the moose grew tipsy on fermented crabapples, prompting the local paper to nickname him "Buzzwinkle" -- after the cartoon character Bullwinkle.

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On the Net:

Municipality of Anchorage: http://www.muni.org

Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau: http://www.anchorage.net
 
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#8 ·
Moose are a type of deer. I like em' while they may not be the friendliest of creatures, they sure are fun to look at! That one in the first pic looks like it is ready to kick some as*!

Steve
 
#9 ·
Moose.... I've just read the translation in italian on the dictionary....

Alce! Well, they are similar to deer and they look so sweet, those big ears and that big nose :):):)

So I have to distrust them.... If i had to meet one o them I will run away!

Thanks buddies.

Ricky
 
#12 ·
ouch....
 
#13 ·
haha do the residents often have the moose attack?
 
#15 · (Edited)
I'm guessing he just walked out the door and didn't know it was there. Moose are VERY dangerous animals, they will attack with no reason if they have their kids around. It's not like deer who just run away or sit there. Residents know not to mess with moose, that guy wouldn't have just walked up to that thing.


The best thing to do if you are confronted by a moose is climb a tree. If you can't climb a tree, you need to get behind a large tree, because you can move around the tree faster than the moose can move around it. Never turn and run, and this will cause the moose to attack and possibly kill you if you don't get away.
 
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