Oh Boy! The producers pay the taxes that build the beautiful bike paths, and the poachers give them to the Fentanyl Nappers. Would Jimmy Stewart still believe this is a wonderful life?
Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey would still want it to be a wonderful life. He would also notice the ledger.
Bailey’s whole argument was that the people who work, save, and pay the freight deserve a town that still works for them. The Building & Loan exists so ordinary families can own a house and walk down a street that isn’t falling apart. Bike paths, parks, and trails sit in that same category: public goods paid for by people who show up, file a return, and expect the asset not to be treated as a campsite or an open-air market.
When those spaces get taken over—tents, needles, theft, people nodding off on the path itself—the compact breaks. It isn’t “compassion versus cruelty.” It’s producers funding amenities that become unusable for the people who paid for them. That’s the part that would land with Bailey. He wasn’t against helping the desperate. He was against a system that rewards the raid and punishes the people keeping the lights on.
Denver’s version of this is visible on trails, underpasses, and some of the nicer paths that used to feel like a civic gift. The city still prints the brochures. The daily experience for a lot of homeowners and commuters is different. You can believe in a wonderful life and still say the current arrangement is a bad deal for the people writing the checks.
Bailey would probably keep the savings-and-loan open. He’d also ask why the town stopped defending the commons it already built.