Richard,
Change is very hard. As we age and look around us, we see so many different things and different people. 
 I do not live in Anchorage but I have visited a number of times and have seen it grow and grow, with positive changes and changes that are alarming. 
I noticed ( to me) that a lot of negative things started to happen during the hey day of the Pipeline. 
Down here, we use to get people (sometimes whole families) who got off the ferry from South with nothing, who had come to Alaska to work on the pipeline. They had no idea that we are an island and that Anchorage was 750 air miles away. Being a small town we did not have the services to help them but back then the State would pay for their tickets to Seattle. 
A Trooper here told me he offered a hitch hiker a ride and asked him where he was headed. The guy said, "North, to the pipeline". So the trooper took him as far North as our road went, 20 miles, dropped him off and wished him luck. 
Blame the pipeline not the PFD.