Co-opting Emerging Wellbeing

How Struggling Communities Are Sold Control and Told It’s for Their Own Good

Image Credit: Don Barret

While I want to tell only stories of positivity and the emergence of Wellbeing Economies everywhere, the truth is that extractive logics are deeply embedded in society, and we won't find the feel-good stories everywhere we look. While one would expect small-town rural communities to have strong social bonds to disrupt this, paradoxically, we find the opposite is true for our first look at a small town in America

In the high desert of central Nevada, where the wind scrapes the bones of old silver camps and the stars burn unchallenged by city light, the small town of Tonopah, with its 1600 people, is being rebranded. Not by its residents, but by developers, mining firms, and government programs that speak the language of “revitalization,” “resilience,” and “community investment.” On paper, it looks like a wellbeing economy. In practice, it’s a patchwork of extractive ventures dressed in the rhetoric of care.

This is not a story of grassroots transformation. It is a story of how control is sold to struggling communities as empowerment, and how the language of wellbeing is used to justify the consolidation of power, land, and infrastructure under private hands.

Land and Housing: Subsidized Ownership, Consolidated Control

In 2016, the Nevada Rural Housing Authority acquired two aging low-income housing properties in Tonopah and merged them into a single complex called Desert Properties. The project was hailed as a model of rural revitalization, funded through a complex web of federal subsidies, including USDA Rural Development loans and low-income housing tax credits.

But beneath the surface, the initiative reflects a broader trend: public funds flowing into private ownership. The housing is managed by a state agency, but the financing structure benefits developers and investors more than tenants. Residents have little say in governance, and the surrounding town remains unincorporated, with no local control over zoning or infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Cline family, wealthy developers from California, have acquired and renovated multiple historic buildings in Tonopah, including the Mizpah Hotel, the Belvada, and the Tonopah Brewing Co. Their investments are framed as philanthropy, but they also control key pieces of the town’s hospitality infrastructure, shaping its identity and economy from the top down.

Food and Resource Sharing: Boutique Agriculture, Limited Access

Tonopah’s food systems are fragile. The town has no urban farms or food justice organizations. The Tonopah Farmers Market offers seasonal produce, but access is limited, and prices reflect boutique sourcing rather than community-scale affordability.

One of the few agricultural ventures in town is Tonopah Farms, a cannabis cultivation operation that invested over $6 million in compliance upgrades. While technically local, the farm’s focus is commercial, not communal. Its products are regulated, its profits private, and its contribution to food sovereignty negligible.

Work and Ownership: Entrepreneurial Spirit, Absent Democracy

Tonopah’s economy is dominated by traditional employment and family-owned businesses. The town’s Main Street program earned national accreditation for supporting revitalization projects, but its leadership is closely tied to developers and hospitality firms.

The Tonopah Liquor Company is a beloved local bar run by a couple who moved from Las Vegas. Their story is one of genuine community engagement, but it also reflects the broader reality: ownership is concentrated in a handful of families and entrepreneurs, with little infrastructure for cooperative development or worker-owned enterprises.

There are no formal worker cooperatives in Tonopah. No democratic workplaces. No social enterprises are rooted in collective governance. The language of “local investment” masks a deeper absence of economic democracy.

Finance: Public Risk, Private Reward

Tonopah’s financial landscape is shaped by conventional institutions like Nevada State Bank and regional credit unions. These banks offer basic services, but they do not operate as cooperative or community-owned entities.

The town’s most striking financial story is the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, which received $737 million in federal loan guarantees. The project was framed as a breakthrough in renewable energy, but it failed to deliver on its promises, went offline in 2019, and left taxpayers on the hook for over $225 million.

This is not economic resilience. It is speculative development backed by public funds, with profits privatized and losses socialized.

Community Renewable Energy: Greenwashing Extraction

The Crescent Dunes project was supposed to power Tonopah’s future. Instead, it became a cautionary tale. The plant’s technology was unreliable, its costs exorbitant, and its operations plagued by leaks and shutdowns.

Other energy ventures, like Pathfinder Tonopah, promise to mine copper and molybdenum using 100% renewable energy. But the project is a brownfield redevelopment of historically mined land, and its environmental impact remains uncertain. The company received a Nevada Excellence in Mine Reclamation Award, but critics question whether reclamation can truly offset decades of extraction.

Ecological Regeneration: Heritage Framed as Restoration

Tonopah’s ecological narrative is shaped by its mining legacy. The Tonopah Historic Mining Park preserves equipment and buildings from the town’s silver boom, offering educational tours and historical exhibits. It is a genuine effort to honor heritage, but it also romanticizes an era of deep ecological disruption.

Modern mining firms like Blackrock Silver and American Battery Technology Company are exploring lithium deposits in the region, driven by the electric vehicle boom. Their operations promise sustainability, but they rely on speculative drilling, water-intensive processes, and federal subsidies.

The language of “green energy” obscures the reality: Tonopah is being re-mined under the banner of climate progress.

Technology and Infrastructure: Civic Gaps, Corporate Narratives

Tonopah’s civic tech infrastructure is minimal. The town has no broadband cooperatives, no platform co-ops, and no digital justice programs. Its revitalization strategy includes infrastructure upgrades, but these are led by developers and state agencies, not community collectives.

The town’s Main Street website lists local organizations, but few offer participatory governance or digital tools for civic engagement. The community remains unincorporated, with decisions made by county officials and private stakeholders.

Interwoven Realities: A Town Caught Between Narratives

Tonopah is not a wellbeing economy. It is a town caught between narratives, one of resilience and heritage, and another of extraction and control. Its initiatives are real, but their governance is opaque. Their funding is public, but their ownership is private. Their language is hopeful, but their impact is uneven.

The town’s population has declined from over 2,000 in 2020 to an estimated 1,600 in 2025. Poverty rates are high, unemployment is persistent, and infrastructure is fragile. Yet the story being told is one of progress.

A Call to Discernment

If you live in Tonopah, ask who owns the land, the buildings, the energy, the narrative. If you live elsewhere, let Tonopah’s story be a mirror. Look beyond the language of wellbeing. Ask who benefits. Ask who decides.

The wellbeing economy is not just about projects. It is about power. And in Tonopah, power is being sold as care.

Tonopah may not yet embody a true wellbeing economy, but its story holds a lesson worth claiming: even in places where ownership is concentrated and narratives are carefully curated, cracks appear. In those cracks, seeds are planted, ideas whispered between neighbors, land remembered by Indigenous stewards, and questions raised about who holds the reins.

Wellbeing doesn’t win because a grant is issued or a building is restored. It wins when people reclaim agency. When the language of care is matched by the practice of equity. When residents begin to imagine futures beyond extraction, beyond control, and beyond the illusion of benevolence.

The win, for Tonopah and towns like it, begins with discernment. It starts with asking better questions. With demanding shared power. And with refusing to settle for survival wrapped in philanthropy.

This isn’t just a warning. It’s a call. A recognition that wellbeing wins when we move beyond performance, and build something genuinely collective, grounded, and alive.