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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,722 posts, read 58,054,000 times
Reputation: 46185
Quote:
Originally Posted by pinebluestem
I thought the Rocky Mountain region of Montana got infested and transformed to liberal Californian virus back in the 1990's?
Actually the influx began in the 1960's, Colorado was pretty well ruined by 1980 (indexed land values that forced 'locals' to leave the state). 1990's brought the population and ideals to sway the vote of the state, but since CO has several counties with population centers, the state still has some moderated votes. Largely perpetuated by RE equity law that was changed by Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. CA could have solved the problem by requiring all equity above the national average sales price to be retained or taxed HEAVY by CA. This would have resulted in a very financially robust CA today (which it is not). And the western states would still be populated with enough 'locals' to moderate the vote and retain the QoL and ideals that endured and endeared the sates as they grew. Such is not the case.
MT and WY were ruined only in property valuations because the majority of the CA equity financed second homes. Thus not swaying the politics, but making it VERY hard to afford the price of admission. WY will not be the next to fall, too spread out, too hard to make a living, too much federal land. WY still has AG and mining as major employer, so will go the route of TX. ID and UT are pretty safe with their LDS populations. MT is a goner due to concentrated population bases, and a pretty liberal electorate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brightdoglover
Did the OP mean only Denver or "the state?"
The OP mentioned DENVER 5x in their post, and mentioned the STATE zero. Then mentioned IT and living in in MSP. So.. being a youngster, the responses follow suit perceiving the OP's interest in finding IT employment AND living in CO. CoS is an option not mentioned, as well as state and federal jobs that would place OP in a good paying position and potentially in a mtn location. (A CO classmate did 6 yrs in USAF, then got a GREAT gov job in CO 'checking snow melt'. He got to live in the mtns (expenses and cabin + snowcat provided and retired with pension at age 40). Rough life! Many great GOV IT jobs with Army Corp / BofRec, BPA, that could get you positioned in the mtns. I have friends that work at remote dams and transmission stations in MT, ID, WA. They can bag their moose / elk on their lunch break.
Moving to Denver cuz you like mtns, is like moving to LA cuz you like the beach, and ending up living and working (IT) in Riverside or Ontario (2 hrs to a crowded and dirty beach)... (when San Diego has a LOT better beach within 20 min of most of the city, and quite a few IT jobs too!).
I apologize for the lack of direction in my post. To be honest at the time I didn't really know what to ask...I just didn't want it to be another "I want to move here and I need advice".
It is really interesting to read about the states past from some of the natives.
For me I would like to get past the idealistic "Colorado Dream" phase before I start looking into it as a place to call home...I figure most people in their 20's kind of move with that dream in their mind without really thinking into the logistics. So for me, learning about the long term future of the state is important.
I was focused on Denver because it's the major CO city I know about the most. I would either like to live in a remote, medium sized city in the mountains, or within the city limits of Denver. I just fear that Denver might turn into something like San Francisco, where if you didn't get in within the last few years you are kind of screwed. Same goes for the mountain towns. I would hope that all of the good, and reasonable, places to live don't get all purchased up in the next few years.
Well, the City & County of Denver (not greater Denver) has been gaining 10K people per year for the last decade.
Can it continue forever?
No.
When will it stop?
Who knows.
Everyone says: we will run out of water and that will stop growth.
Maybe, but the historical data for Denver Water say no.
And, this
"Denver Water’s total retail treated water use by category:
48 percent single-family homes
23 percent business and industry
19 percent multifamily homes
6 percent irrigation-only
4 percent public agencies
Average single-family residential customer’s water usage:
would suggest that there is still a lot of slack in the system.
I can't figure out the graph you included in your post. It looks to me like its showing that somewhere around 2004, Denver began to acquire MORE treated water than there was an actual demand for. So what is Denver doing with all that extra water?
I wonder what it's like to know that I made the rain
I'd store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one
You can come and see them when I'm ... done
When I'm done (Matchbox 20)
So where are Denver's "boxes with little yellow tags"? Also, if Denver has all this excess water, why does it have its claws out, ready to pounce on the Western Slope and divert every last drop of water we have out here? Denver's boxes with yellow tags include Lake Powell which is currently around one third of its original capacity. We continue to have record breaking temperatures every year. Climate change is real and the continued warming does not bode well for water in the West. There's a very informative thread on this forum on how "the west is running out of water." I refer the interested reader to that, rather than attempting to re-invent the wheel here. The bottom line is that water is a major concern if Denver is to continue to grow at its current rate.
The above aside, my take on Denver's future is that the city will continue to have a good economy in the near term (the next 10 - 20 years). The housing market will begin to open up as supply rushes to meet demand and Denver will continue to attract both new businesses and new residents. I don't know why anyone would call Denver "ruined." Over the course of my life time I have watched the Denver metro area grow from an over-sized cow town with a population of 500,000 to the sophisticated urban center that it is today. If that's "ruined," well then I guess Denver is doing pretty well for a ruined city. Denver continues to offer more diversity, more employment, more cultural programs and more innovations with the passing of every year. If I were an urban type, I'd prefer to live in the Denver of today versus the Denver of 20 or 30 years ago.
As for Colorado in general, I feel that increased population pressure combined with the TABOR amendment has decreased the quality of life around the state. But my perceptions are those of a Colorado native who remembers the state from back in the day when the entire state had a population of 2 million and was considered more rural than urban. When I was growing up, the ski scene here was as much about mountaineering as it was downhill. I had my uncle's old Swiss mountaineering ski's from the days when he was with the Swiss army defending that country's neutrality during WWII. Oh, those were such wonderful skis! My ski outfit was blue jeans and gaiters and I considered having to pay for a lift ticket a personal affront. Ah, what a dinosaur am I!
The OP mentioned that he considered a hike in RMNP as solitary if he only encountered another hiker every 20 or 30 minutes or so. To me, a hike where I encountered that many people would be the equivalent of taking a stroll around Denver's Washington Park. I'm one of those solitary types who prefer the solace of empty places. If I go up in the mountains, I don't want to encounter anyone else for two weeks. And when I do, I consider that place as ruined and seek out some other more remote place to commune with the mountains and the sky. But my species is going extinct in Colorado and I have retreated to one of the most remote places in the state. Younger folk who come from other places have nothing to compare their current experience of Colorado to, and they feel the state is just fine. This is actually a good thing since if Colorado was populated with more people like me; the economy would soon crash due to a mass exodus of the population to Wyoming or Alaska. However, going by the posts on this board many if not most newcomers consider a move to one of Denver's suburbs as equivalent to a move to the mountains. As long as this perception continues to exist, Denver will continue to boom.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,722 posts, read 58,054,000 times
Reputation: 46185
Quote:
Originally Posted by ttsch10
I apologize for the lack of direction in my post. To be honest at the time I didn't really know what to ask...I just didn't want it to be another "I want to move here and I need advice".
It is really interesting to read about the states past from some of the natives.
For me I would like to get past the idealistic "Colorado Dream" phase before I start looking into it as a place to call home...I figure most people in their 20's kind of move with that dream in their mind without really thinking into the logistics. So for me, learning about the long term future of the state is important.
I was focused on Denver because it's the major CO city I know about the most. I would either like to live in a remote, medium sized city in the mountains, or within the city limits of Denver. I just fear that Denver might turn into something like San Francisco, where if you didn't get in within the last few years you are kind of screwed. Same goes for the mountain towns. I would hope that all of the good, and reasonable, places to live don't get all purchased up in the next few years.
There will always be a way to enter the RE market, some times more opportune than others! (even in SF (which BTW is not a bad spot!)),
First, find a place you WANT to call home, then get creative in finding a way to make it home... I bought my first house in Colorado when I was 19, but that kinda ties you down! I would not recommend that, especially considering how many NICE options there are for you (besides Colorado).
What are your top 5 items for important? (Before you get to wages). You will find that having a better life is more important than wages, especially if you have a transportable skill. Do you have any 'hard skills'?... I.e. working with your hands / cranking out a living in the mtns.
I'm not sure you want a Remote Mtn town if you are also considering Denver. (not that there are too many remote towns left in Colorado).
Actually the influx began in the 1960's, Colorado was pretty well ruined by 1980 (indexed land values that forced 'locals' to leave the state). 1990's brought the population and ideals to sway the vote of the state, but since CO has several counties with population centers, the state still has some moderated votes. Largely perpetuated by RE equity law that was changed by Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. CA could have solved the problem by requiring all equity above the national average sales price to be retained or taxed HEAVY by CA. This would have resulted in a very financially robust CA today (which it is not). And the western states would still be populated with enough 'locals' to moderate the vote and retain the QoL and ideals that endured and endeared the sates as they grew. Such is not the case.
MT and WY were ruined only in property valuations because the majority of the CA equity financed second homes. Thus not swaying the politics, but making it VERY hard to afford the price of admission. WY will not be the next to fall, too spread out, too hard to make a living, too much federal land. WY still has AG and mining as major employer, so will go the route of TX. ID and UT are pretty safe with their LDS populations. MT is a goner due to concentrated population bases, and a pretty liberal electorate.
The OP mentioned DENVER 5x in their post, and mentioned the STATE zero. Then mentioned IT and living in in MSP. So.. being a youngster, the responses follow suit perceiving the OP's interest in finding IT employment AND living in CO. CoS is an option not mentioned, as well as state and federal jobs that would place OP in a good paying position and potentially in a mtn location. (A CO classmate did 6 yrs in USAF, then got a GREAT gov job in CO 'checking snow melt'. He got to live in the mtns (expenses and cabin + snowcat provided and retired with pension at age 40). Rough life! Many great GOV IT jobs with Army Corp / BofRec, BPA, that could get you positioned in the mtns. I have friends that work at remote dams and transmission stations in MT, ID, WA. They can bag their moose / elk on their lunch break.
Moving to Denver cuz you like mtns, is like moving to LA cuz you like the beach, and ending up living and working (IT) in Riverside or Ontario (2 hrs to a crowded and dirty beach)... (when San Diego has a LOT better beach within 20 min of most of the city, and quite a few IT jobs too!).
I thought that Colorado was wonderful back in the 1980s and early 1990s. After that is when i saw positive and negatives changes including jump of the population along the front range. With that it is easy to say that because i was not born in the 1960 or around Colorado in the 1970.
I apologize for the lack of direction in my post. To be honest at the time I didn't really know what to ask...I just didn't want it to be another "I want to move here and I need advice".
It is really interesting to read about the states past from some of the natives.
For me I would like to get past the idealistic "Colorado Dream" phase before I start looking into it as a place to call home...I figure most people in their 20's kind of move with that dream in their mind without really thinking into the logistics. So for me, learning about the long term future of the state is important.
I was focused on Denver because it's the major CO city I know about the most. I would either like to live in a remote, medium sized city in the mountains, or within the city limits of Denver. I just fear that Denver might turn into something like San Francisco, where if you didn't get in within the last few years you are kind of screwed. Same goes for the mountain towns. I would hope that all of the good, and reasonable, places to live don't get all purchased up in the next few years.
I have dreams for living in Colorado until recently i realized it would be hard unless i had a dam good paying job......unless i enjoy living in poverty. Nerveless, it is not going anywhere in a long time.
I have dreams for living in Colorado until recently i realized it would be hard unless i had a dam good paying job......unless i enjoy living in poverty. Nerveless, it is not going anywhere in a long time.
I wouldn't live here unless I had a good job and I am very fortunate and grateful for it. If something were to happen I would sell the house and cash in. I honestly dont know how ppl get by that move here just for pot unless that have a mommy and daddy fund.
Denver will continue to grow for a while... But at some point that will slow down and/or development will catch up to demand like it always does and cost of living will decrease, but then it will go up again. This will continue until the yellowstone supervolcano explodes and we all die.
But seriously, Denver is doing what all cities do, things will normalize given time and careful policy decisions.
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