Attitudes Towards Californians (Denver, Colorado Springs: transplants, military, incomes)

[DannyBanany]

Everytime I visit Colorado, I hear how people say that everyone I see is not actually from there. Its chock-full of people from California and the Coloradoans all moved to the mid-west.

Is this true? If so, what are the general attitudes that Coloradoans have towards Californian 'immigrants'? What do Californians bring that Coloradoans dislike? Is there a positive aspect to them moving in?

Let me know!

[Charles]

As a California immigrant I can say that I have been treated in a very friendly way. No one ever bugs me. Maybe it is because so many people in Colorado are themselves from somewhere else. Of course I don't have Laker and Dodger stickers on my car and drive around downtown sports bars in Denver. In California, I hated going to Dodgers-Mets, Angels-Yankees, Angels-Boston, etc games because at least half the people there were rooting against my home teams. So I guess I don't want to **** Coloradoans off like east coasters ****** me off. There is something very defeating about being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the 405 freeway in LA and looking ahead at the car in front of you with an I LOVE NY sticker on it. Reason #59 why I don't live in LA anymore.

Some long time posters on these boards justifiably raise concerns about overpopulation, sprawl, natural resources, degradation of the landscape etc. But that is sort of independent of where people came from and more directed at in-migration in general.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by DannyBanany

Everytime I visit Colorado, I hear how people say that everyone I see is not actually from there. Its chock-full of people from California and the Coloradoans all moved to the mid-west.

That is total B.S. There are many, many, many people in CO who were born and raised there. They're not ALL from somewhere else. There is always population migration, people moving in, people moving out, anywhere you go in the world. There will always be a trickle of people leaving for other places, for one reason or another, but most native Coloradans haven't gone anywhere, except perhaps to a different part of the state. And the Coloradans who do leave (usually for retirement) aren't flocking to the midwest. They go to nearby western states-- Wyoming, Montana, Arizona perhaps. In my experience, the people who are always complaining about newcomers, Californians, etc, are usually those in their late 50s, 60s, and older. It's mainly a generational thing, longing for the "good ole days." We had a whole thread/ flame war on this subject a couple months back titled "Why the split between 'old' and 'new' Coloradans." Well, there's a whole new generation of native Coloradans, people my age, who grew up in the suburbs of Denver in the 1990s and are just now starting to become young adults.

The one legitimate problem I do have with Californians is the way they drive. The whole relaxed, laid back "surfer" image is almost 180 degrees opposite of the truth. They drive aggressive, mean, fast, and dangerous on the roads-- like maniacs. They are freeway crazy out there-- they have their own lingo just for talking about freeways-- "THE 405", etc. Everything with them has to be abbreviated with these code letters-- "L.A," "S.B," "O.C," it's like they can't just slow down and speak plain English. You don't want to be caught dead in CO talking like that! Also, they are helping to change people's expectations about what a reasonable commute is. They come to Colorado (and Arizona) thinking that an hour commute one way is normal. However, once you really get to know them, they are not fundamentally different from Coloradans, especially Front Range Coloradans.

[Katiana]

City-data does not have statistics for the state of Colorado as a whole, you have to look at each city/town individually. You also have to do your own math. For Denver, about 40% of the population was born in Colorado. This includes kids who were born here to parents from out of state.

[COflower]

Life long resident here.

I have written about this before (not sure if Mike can hunt down the big thread on that, I am not sure which keywords to use).

Anyhow, it is my opinion that the attitude about Californians and those from other states I wont mention, stem from the influx of out-of-staters in the mid to late 80s and in the late 80s, we had some serious economic issues that stemmed from that influx.

Attitudes at that time were also among the realm of "I moved here, now lock the gate and don't let anyone else in." There is still a slight attitude about that but it's not that big of a deal.

Part of my personal attitude which is "eh, move here, no big deal to me, I love this place too" also might stem from the fact I was born and raised in Colorado Springs which has a pretty high transient population...not of the homeless kind as much as people move in and out of here a lot because of the military and the DOD contractors around here. We get people from all over the world here.

So, if anyone happens to experience some kind of poor attitude from locals, brush it off as the majority of people - natives and non-natives alike - are not like that. They have more problems than just someone moving in from elsewhere. Didn't we all (thinking of ancestors and such) move from somewhere else?

[downtownnola]

I think the whole "anti-Californian" thing is over-rated. It has been run to the ground on this forum over and over again. It was a big deal back in the 80s and early 90s when Colorado was growing at an unprecedented rate but nowadays, I think it's old news.

The anti-outsider mentality is not just limited to Colorado. If you check the boards of any fast growing region, you will hear the same concerns... too many people equal too much traffic, more crime, more urban sprawl, etc... states like Arizona, Oregon and Washington have also seen a major influx of Californians over the past few decades.

As for the drivers, I think it is unfair to blame all of the bad driving habits on Californians. Denver drivers are also very aggressive and drive fast just like Californians. Having driven a fair amount of time in both southern California and Denver, I honestly can't say that I see alot of difference. The only noticable difference is that the traffic in California is MUCH worse and I noticed that hardly anyone in California uses their blinkers. Denver drivers are certainly no angels... and I don't think that all of the bad drivers here are necessarily from somewhere else

[Katiana]

As for the drivers, I think it is unfair to blame all of the bad driving habits on Californians. Denver drivers are also very aggressive and drive fast just like Californians. Having driven a fair amount of time in both southern California and Denver, I honestly can't say that I see alot of difference. The only noticable difference is that the traffic in California is MUCH worse and I noticed that hardly anyone in California uses their blinkers. Denver drivers are certainly no angels... and I don't think that all of the bad drivers here are necessarily from somewhere else

That is what my DH said once when I postulated that it was all the midwesterns with their bad habits that made driving so awful here. "They're mostly homegrown".
PS: Did live in the midwest for 7 yrs, so have a basis for comparison.

[vfrpilot]

We moved here from CA 3 years ago and have had only 1 bad experience when my wife almost got run off I-25 because our car had CA plates. Other than that people have been great. Our immediate neighbors are from TX,Ohio,Miss,and Germany. The Coloradoans we know are all very nice.

[jazzlover]

vegaspilgrim says it's a generational thing--well she's part right. Some of us "old line" Coloradans can remember when there weren't literally a million crackerbox houses covering the Front Range, when there wasn't gridlock 18 hours a day on the roads, when one could find solitude and quiet in the mountains (even relatively close to Denver), when local residents could actually afford to have a cabin in the mountains, and when people had more values than money. For remembering those things and longing for them, we are criticized, called names, and generally regarded as "fuddy-duddies" by a generation who not only doesn't necessarily see the value in such things, but--in many cases--doesn't even know what we're talking about.

The suburbia vegaspilgrim talks about is the lifestyle that is killing everything unique, desirable, and decent about Colorado. It's no small wonder that some people are turned off by transplants from California--a state that has taken suburbanization and made it a religion--and from where tens of thousands of people now leave each year to escape its pernicious effects. Unfortunately, they tend to spread that same cancer wherever they go. They hate what suburbanization finally created in California, but they don't know any better than to recreate it wherever they go. And so few Coloradans today live in anything but suburbia, they don't know anything different, either.

That all will be to their detriment. James Kunstler (author of the book, "The Long Emergency," puts it this way on his blog ( Cluster**** Nation by Jim Kunstler )

"The more interesting point in all this, for the moment, is that the media has still not put together the collapse of the housing bubble and the permanent oil crisis. These events will be happening simultaneously. The housing industry, so-called, will never recover because the oil crisis spells the end of the suburban build out. The cycle is over. The big production homebuilders will go down and never come back. We won't need any more retail, either. We won't be building anymore WalMarts and Target stores, and the thousands now running will die off just as the giant Baluchitherium of the Asian steppes crapped out in the early Miocene epoch.
The end of the suburban build-out will be a stupendous trauma for the United States because, unfortunately, we have made it the basis of our economy for a generation, as well as our living arrangement. Not only will incomes and livelihoods be lost on the grand scale, and never come back, but, as the global oil predicament deepens, the existing fabric of our vast suburbs will become increasingly useless and worthless. The people stuck in them will lose whatever wealth they have accumulated and our arrangements for daily life will become increasingly nightmarish."

[Charles]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

That all will be to their detriment. James Kunstler (author of the book, "The Long Emergency," puts it this way on his blog ( Cluster**** Nation by Jim Kunstler )

Pretty intense though it does seem a little extreme. However, few people expected the Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, or 9/11 either.

Isn't Kunstler the same guy who predicted in 2005 a Dow of 4000 by 2006? Today the Dow reached 14, 095.