Internet Age Boom Town Copes With Growing Pains

"While much of the U.S. frets over a residential real-estate slump, this small farming town on Washington State's plains has the opposite worry: A boom-town economy is inflating housing prices.

Quincy has the Web to thank -- or to blame. The town's economic boom began with the arrival of three high-profile neighbors: Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Intuit Inc. In 2006, the tech giants separately announced plans to build new computer-data centers here.

But while the new arrivals have brought prosperity, locals are beginning to wonder how to handle what may be too much of a good thing. Quincy is a town of 5,300 people and two traffic lights that, until now, has typically seen only one to four new homes built a year. Now, developers have filed plans for upwards of 1,000 new homes and a strip mall that would include a hotel and the town's first movie theater. Land prices have as much as quintupled over the past year and apartment rents have jumped as much as 50%."