“Got dreadlocks? Got a VW bus? Got a cause? If so, you’ve got a home in Arcata, especially if gorgeous redwood forests and bold community spirit complete your picture of the good life… ecology movement radicals meet timber industry pooh-bahs head on, and both survive.” Utne Reader magazine, May/June 1997.

When typing the words “green, Arcata and home” in an Internet search engine recently, one of the first things that popped up listed Arcata, Calif. as one of the nation’s “top ten communities leading the way to a better future.”

It came in at number six, ideal home to dreadlocked Volkswagen owners as the “Green Town in the Redwoods.”

Although it was written by a slew of editors (who have never been to the hamlet, they admitted) at Utne Reader magazine 11 years ago, many Arcatans believe the green ideals of the walkable town, with its following of avid recyclers, are still very much alive today.

Although the Utne Reader article (http://www.codepink.utne.com/1997-05-01/6ArcataCalifornia.aspx?page=2) about the nation’s most ideal communities was penned by Cathy Madison in 1997, now a freelance journalist in Minneapolis, she said she had no say in the selection of the cities.

It was her first article at the magazine and a handful of editors had already been networking with hundreds of sources across the nation to find their locations and she was responsible for compiling it.

Madison said she has never been to Arcata.

But neither had any of the other editors working on the two-month-project, as far as former Utne Reader editor-at-large Jay Walljasper could recall.

Walljasper, now a senior editor at Ode Magazine, said Arcata was chosen, from afar, because it seemed like a free-spirited community with a strong presence of political activism.

Plus, it was walkable-as-heck (or so he heard), which tossed it in the hat.

“Stuff doesn’t happen where people aren’t walking,” he said in a phone call from his home in Minneapolis. “I bike almost everywhere. Yesterday, it was three below and I rode my bicycle to the grocery store.”

Out of a selection of 30 communities, the list was whittled down to ten.

Besides Arcata, other top communities included Madison, Wis. (number five), Chattanooga, Tenn. (number 10), and Ithaca, New York (number one).

“We were looking for something that offered more than an absence of problems and for people who rolled up their sleeves to solve problems,” Walljasper said in a phone call from his home in Minneapolis. “Arcata had the critical mass questioning broader societies. It didn’t look like a bad place to live on a low income.”

He hasn’t been to Arcata (“I’ve never had the reason to go,” he said.), but insisted it is on his list of places to see.

Sure, there are some people running around Arcata with deliberate dreadlocks.

There are people who practice “recycling as religion” too (as the article touts), but do residents agree that Arcata is as spirited and green as the article makes it out to be?

Arcata resident and Heartbead employee Francechesca Hanna seemed to think so.

“It made me feel good about where I’m living,” she said after reading the article. “It was cool to think it was revolutionary back then and Arcata still has that integrity and progressiveness.”

From inside the confines of the solar-paneled Arcata City Hall, Mayor of Arcata Mark Wheetley said he remembered the article and felt it highlighted Arcata’s bold community spirit.

“People care about the quality of life and it sets Arcata apart,” he said. “There are more people who ask themselves how they can make the world a better place. It’s the spirit of Arcata.”

Kevin Hoover, editor of the Arcata Eye weekly newspaper, remembered the magazine’s cover story, as well, and said that besides Utne Reader, media outlets such as Vegetarian Times, High Times,
Time and Fox News have also examined Arcata.

“I sometimes wish Arcata actually was the freakazoid burg they make us out to be,” he said. “It’s true that we have a lot of fun stuff, like most college towns. Mostly, though, Arcata is thousands of people trying to make a living, pay their bills, educate their kids and have a life.”

Hoover may have hit a point, considering that not every Arcatan has a solar panel on their roof or has chosen to eat organic.

“It depends on your perspective,” said Philip Hooker, an information technology consultant at Humboldt State University. “There’s a lot of people that don’t appreciate that lifestyle because it’s different than they were raised to be.”

Although there are differing opinions about the article, Wheetley seemed to think that Arcata’s can-do attitude hasn’t changed much. Save, of course, for the fact that the article mentions there is a Green majority on the Arcata city council, which isn’t true anymore (two greens, two democrats, one independent).

“It would have been easy to get a consistent message about Arcata,” Wheetley said. “I think we have less people with dreadlocks, a lot of the vans are older and broken down, but we certainly have stayed on that path.”