10 Best Colorado Towns To Retire To

[NW Crow]

The 10 best cities / towns in Colorado depend on what you want. Size, jobs, amenities, neighbors, access to mountains, access to big city, real estate offerings & appreciation, snow, politics, etc.

[StealthRabbit]

Size, jobs, amenities, neighbors, access to mountains, access to big city, real estate offerings & appreciation, snow, politics, etc.

and new rules and future changes...

plan on it.

[COcheesehead]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

... and 155,000 as a county / metro
(with 62,000 in neighboring Garfield County).

The county is huge. It extends from almost Carbondale to the Utah border to south of Gateway. That’s a lot of ground to spread 155,000 over. Not sure how that qualifies as “metro” LOL.

[NW Crow]

Metro by US Census Bureau is metro.

Yeah it is a big area with lots of rural population.. who come into GJ to do most things.

[interloper1138]

Originally Posted by COcheesehead

The county is huge. It extends from almost Carbondale to the Utah border to south of Gateway. That’s a lot of ground to spread 155,000 over. Not sure how that qualifies as “metro” LOL.

I feel like you're being a little pedantic here, COcheesehead. To say that the Grand Valley stretch from Fruita to Palisade is not a metro area is silly. It's almost (though not quite) constant subdivisions / neighborhoods / development for that whole section of highway. I think that's what NW Crow was getting at. Is it anything like anywhere on the Front Range? Heck no, but it's a lot of people compared to most parts of Rural CO and it certainly feels like the 'big city' if you're used to living in towns with sub 10k populations like I am.

And I'm not hating on the area, either. I like it very much and visit at least once a year. I would visit even more frequently if it weren't so far away from the SLV. It's got tons to offer and is still greatly under-appreciated in my view.

It's even on my list as a potential retirement destination if the need for better medical care and/or warmer weather leans on me in my later years. Redlands in particular has caught my attention. I do wonder about the potential for sprawl and/or exhorbitant prices in another 30 years (when I'll retire) as personally disqualifying factors, though. Eventually enough people are going to get sick of the Front Range and head over the divide when they realize what they're missing. Maybe I'll just head for ABQ or Santa Fe and keep the SLV close.

[NW Crow]

Depending on who is answering 70-75% of Mesa County is federal land. So the overall density of 47 people per square mile goes to 175-200 for the private portion.

Fwiw that density level is 2 to 2.5x what Weld County's density is and probably still more than it after backing out federal land there.

Mesa County is fairly developed for a rural area.

The average density of the entire U.S. is 93 people per square mile.
So the private land is twice that density. Small potatoes to city folk but noticeable to others. I probably could find areas low key enough for me but finding available housing in such places appears tougher from my recent searches. Hence some consideration of places to the south and west and north and even a few spots to the east of GJ.

Mesa County only added about 1,000 per year in last few years but has a long history of adding 3k / yr. And with some recent good press, it might go back to that (or more).

Folks will look at it all in their own way. Some will see a very modest metro compared to the front range blob. Some might see the by far largest metro for 250,000+ square miles of land area.


(Aside: If people spread out absolutely everywhere in country and evenly, that would be 1 person every 500 feet in each direction.)

[COcheesehead]

It takes easily 90 to 120 minutes to drive border to border in the county. Yes 155,000 are in the county, but the metro area is GJ - 68,000 ish, Palisade 3000 ish and Fruita 13,000 ish.