I talked to 3 dozen people who live full-time in rural/resort areas (or who are debating leaving the city for their second homes) to write this piece on how the privilege to "escape" cities is gong to ravage rural communities: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/coronavirus-covid-cities-second-homes-rural-small-towns

I was also very lucky to spend some time talking to rural studies scholars @jean__hardy & @ashleighweeden, who 1) you should follow and 2) really shaped my thinking on this piece

I wish people thinking about going to second homes, or scouring for short-term rentals, could understand how palpably scared full-time residents are of what will happen because of that impulse

There are huge COVID-19 hotspots in Blaine County, Idaho; Gunnison County, CO; Summit County, UT; Gallatin County, MT. What are all of those places? Ski towns.

As @tressiemcphd put it, "wealth is the vector"

Blaine County, ID (Sun Valley) currently has the 3rd highest per-capita cases in the United States. Massive testing delays, but they're already at 187 cases in a county of 22,000.

Their small hospital has two ICU beds and a single ventilator.

Some communities have closed down short-term rentals. But many Airbnbs have turned properties into "short term leases" — w/language like "available until July!" or "longer lease for the right tenant" (yeah right)

And so many of these towns have massive affordable housing crises

In Whitefish, MT, an email blast from a local rental company advertised to those “looking for a great spot to isolate or self-quarantine."

The owners of one Airbnb in Bozeman briefly listed it as “The Last Best Place to Quarantine.” (h/t to @kemc for that one)

A luxury travel booker told Forbes she’s still busy booking “a lot of resorts in mountain areas,” including Paws Up Resort, 45 minutes outside of Missoula, which bills itself as “like a national park, but private.”

Many people still think of rural and remote places as “empty,” as places of escape — which, as @ashleighweeden puts it, “ignores that there are entire communities of people who live there year-round and indigenous people who’ve lived in these places since time immemorial.”

Many of these rural communities are also already scared of the disaster gentrification to come b/c of climate change.

@jean__hardy: “Rural communities are going to see an uptick, outside of the coronavirus, of people buying second homes as a refuge from climate change...."

".....And it’s the same thing with the so-called coronavirus refugee: People are thinking, Where do we want to be in a disaster situation? Where is the most safe? And the answer, to them, are these rural places.” (again, @jean__hardy)

The virus, some people have taken to saying, “does not discriminate.” But that’s not quite true. It is putting our class & racial hierarchies in harsh relief — systems that favor the rich and the globally mobile while declaring the work of so many of the working class “essential"

Last thing that feels important (& isn't in the piece): One man told me he'd thought very seriously about taking his family to their second home in California, but ultimately decided not to — b/c they're Asian, & "the county is 85% white, 1% Asian, & in 2016 was 43% Trump voters"