https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ca/606382/
EXCERPT: . . . Boca Chica is an unincorporated community of about 40 houses, mostly one-story homes with soft-orange brick exteriors, on the southernmost tip of Texas. There are no shops or restaurants or amenities of any kind around, including municipal water pipes; Cameron County regularly trucks in gallons of water, which is stored in outdoor tanks. Many residents are retired; they spend summers in northern states and flock south for the winter like migratory birds, eager for the peaceful stillness of the coastline.
The only way to reach the village is via State Highway 4, a two-lane road that runs through mostly empty land. It originates to the west, in the city of Brownsville [...] The residents of Boca Chica first learned of SpaceX’s plans at a public meeting ... most people spoke in support of the project, which SpaceX promised would bring hundreds of jobs to the area. To residents of Boca Chica Village, the whole thing felt like a pep rally. For Brownsville, one of the poorest cities in the country, SpaceX seemed to offer an unlikely dream: the opportunity to turn a border town into a 21st-century space city.
[...] The road closures became a fact of life in Boca Chica. So did the intrusions of SpaceX operations, which reached a new intensity. Nearly every day, beneath the sound of wind blowing through dry grass and the staccato chirps of blackbirds, there was the clanging, whirring, and buzzing of construction equipment, the high-pitched beeping of trucks in reverse and cranes climbing high, the music the workers put on to entertain themselves. The work lasted through the night, beneath the glow of industrial lights. On windy days, pieces of plastic wrap drifted away from the construction site and stuck to the yucca trees. Some residents started calling and emailing county offices, state officials, federal agencies—anybody who could tell them whether any of this was sanctioned.
All the residents I spoke with—close to a dozen—told me a version of the same story. Before SpaceX, the village felt like a coastal paradise, contentedly dislodged from civilization. At night, the only light came from the distant hotel towers on South Padre Island to the north and the Milky Way overhead. Now the place felt almost claustrophobic.
[...] The village residents had suspected that SpaceX would want them out someday. But some were still shocked by the letters, especially after they read what was inside. SpaceX had commissioned an appraisal of their properties, without their knowledge, and was now offering them three times the resulting market value. The process would be handled by JLL, a commercial real-estate company. SpaceX gave the residents two weeks to respond.
Some signed the contracts, but many didn’t want to leave. [...] SpaceX can’t force the residents to leave, but the county can. In 2013, county commissioners established a corporation “to assist in the promotion and development of a spaceport project” in Cameron County. Under Texas law, the corporation has the authority to exercise the same right that lets governments take over private property and compensate its owners.
[...] Mary McConnaughey, watching her neighbors trickle away has been difficult. She felt a twinge of sadness when she saw SpaceX workers trimming the grassy median on her street. “It’s just something that we’ve always done,” she said. [...] Cameron County is a far cry from Cape Canaveral, but the infrastructure to support a departure gate from Earth is slowly emerging. The county has spent millions of dollars to spruce up a park at the southern end of South Padre Island as a prime viewing spot for future launches, installing an amphitheater, event center, pavilion, and boardwalks. SpaceX has begun inviting people to Stargate, the control center in Boca Chica, to meet and interview with recruiters.
[...] As SpaceX plants roots in Cameron County, the company seems to be growing impatient about the people—about 20—who don’t want to leave. In mid-January, David Finlay, SpaceX’s senior director of finance, came to town and stopped into the homes of residents who haven’t sold. “He sat in my living room and he apologized because they’re making us leave,” but he said SpaceX needed them out soon, Garcia Johnson told me. When she asked about eminent domain, Finlay said he could tell Texas officials that SpaceX might leave if it can’t maintain operations here, which could prompt the county to start eminent-domain proceedings. Garcia Johnson hasn’t changed her mind.
SpaceX declined to discuss the specifics of its negotiations with residents in Boca Chica and the possibility of eminent domain, and emphasized its commitment to its Texas locations. [...] Like Garcia Johnson, McConnaughey never wants to give up her home in Boca Chica, but she would do it for what she feels is a fair price, enough to find a similar home with the views and the quiet she has enjoyed in the village for years. But she can’t imagine being anywhere else, especially now. She loves documenting what SpaceX is doing, even though she knows the company wants her to leave.
[...] McConnaughey recognizes that her desires might seem difficult to reconcile, but she doesn’t feel conflicted about her hobby [...] She doesn’t do it for the love of SpaceX. [...] She does it for the nasaspaceflight.com community, who encouraged her to post more pictures when she first started, and for other space fans who don’t have the view that she does.
[...] McConnaughey, Garcia Johnson, Workman, and others said they’ll stick it out for as long as they can, but they know that Boca Chica has become something else, something harder to recognize. It is a strange existence, to move through the familiar routines of their days without knowing how many are left in their shifting paradise. A security guard near the big antennae told me that some of the residents wave to him during their daily walks, and he knows some of them by name. I asked him whether he knew that SpaceX was trying to buy their homes. “I thought the county made a decision for them already,” he said. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . Boca Chica is an unincorporated community of about 40 houses, mostly one-story homes with soft-orange brick exteriors, on the southernmost tip of Texas. There are no shops or restaurants or amenities of any kind around, including municipal water pipes; Cameron County regularly trucks in gallons of water, which is stored in outdoor tanks. Many residents are retired; they spend summers in northern states and flock south for the winter like migratory birds, eager for the peaceful stillness of the coastline.
The only way to reach the village is via State Highway 4, a two-lane road that runs through mostly empty land. It originates to the west, in the city of Brownsville [...] The residents of Boca Chica first learned of SpaceX’s plans at a public meeting ... most people spoke in support of the project, which SpaceX promised would bring hundreds of jobs to the area. To residents of Boca Chica Village, the whole thing felt like a pep rally. For Brownsville, one of the poorest cities in the country, SpaceX seemed to offer an unlikely dream: the opportunity to turn a border town into a 21st-century space city.
[...] The road closures became a fact of life in Boca Chica. So did the intrusions of SpaceX operations, which reached a new intensity. Nearly every day, beneath the sound of wind blowing through dry grass and the staccato chirps of blackbirds, there was the clanging, whirring, and buzzing of construction equipment, the high-pitched beeping of trucks in reverse and cranes climbing high, the music the workers put on to entertain themselves. The work lasted through the night, beneath the glow of industrial lights. On windy days, pieces of plastic wrap drifted away from the construction site and stuck to the yucca trees. Some residents started calling and emailing county offices, state officials, federal agencies—anybody who could tell them whether any of this was sanctioned.
All the residents I spoke with—close to a dozen—told me a version of the same story. Before SpaceX, the village felt like a coastal paradise, contentedly dislodged from civilization. At night, the only light came from the distant hotel towers on South Padre Island to the north and the Milky Way overhead. Now the place felt almost claustrophobic.
[...] The village residents had suspected that SpaceX would want them out someday. But some were still shocked by the letters, especially after they read what was inside. SpaceX had commissioned an appraisal of their properties, without their knowledge, and was now offering them three times the resulting market value. The process would be handled by JLL, a commercial real-estate company. SpaceX gave the residents two weeks to respond.
Some signed the contracts, but many didn’t want to leave. [...] SpaceX can’t force the residents to leave, but the county can. In 2013, county commissioners established a corporation “to assist in the promotion and development of a spaceport project” in Cameron County. Under Texas law, the corporation has the authority to exercise the same right that lets governments take over private property and compensate its owners.
[...] Mary McConnaughey, watching her neighbors trickle away has been difficult. She felt a twinge of sadness when she saw SpaceX workers trimming the grassy median on her street. “It’s just something that we’ve always done,” she said. [...] Cameron County is a far cry from Cape Canaveral, but the infrastructure to support a departure gate from Earth is slowly emerging. The county has spent millions of dollars to spruce up a park at the southern end of South Padre Island as a prime viewing spot for future launches, installing an amphitheater, event center, pavilion, and boardwalks. SpaceX has begun inviting people to Stargate, the control center in Boca Chica, to meet and interview with recruiters.
[...] As SpaceX plants roots in Cameron County, the company seems to be growing impatient about the people—about 20—who don’t want to leave. In mid-January, David Finlay, SpaceX’s senior director of finance, came to town and stopped into the homes of residents who haven’t sold. “He sat in my living room and he apologized because they’re making us leave,” but he said SpaceX needed them out soon, Garcia Johnson told me. When she asked about eminent domain, Finlay said he could tell Texas officials that SpaceX might leave if it can’t maintain operations here, which could prompt the county to start eminent-domain proceedings. Garcia Johnson hasn’t changed her mind.
SpaceX declined to discuss the specifics of its negotiations with residents in Boca Chica and the possibility of eminent domain, and emphasized its commitment to its Texas locations. [...] Like Garcia Johnson, McConnaughey never wants to give up her home in Boca Chica, but she would do it for what she feels is a fair price, enough to find a similar home with the views and the quiet she has enjoyed in the village for years. But she can’t imagine being anywhere else, especially now. She loves documenting what SpaceX is doing, even though she knows the company wants her to leave.
[...] McConnaughey recognizes that her desires might seem difficult to reconcile, but she doesn’t feel conflicted about her hobby [...] She doesn’t do it for the love of SpaceX. [...] She does it for the nasaspaceflight.com community, who encouraged her to post more pictures when she first started, and for other space fans who don’t have the view that she does.
[...] McConnaughey, Garcia Johnson, Workman, and others said they’ll stick it out for as long as they can, but they know that Boca Chica has become something else, something harder to recognize. It is a strange existence, to move through the familiar routines of their days without knowing how many are left in their shifting paradise. A security guard near the big antennae told me that some of the residents wave to him during their daily walks, and he knows some of them by name. I asked him whether he knew that SpaceX was trying to buy their homes. “I thought the county made a decision for them already,” he said. (MORE - details)