NY Times:About Salida (Aspen, Telluride: real estate, homes, buying)

[suzco]

The NY Times has an article about Salida in the Real Estate section. Interesting, they present it as a place that answers that oft-repeated question we hear here on CD, where's a small mountain town without the glitz and glitter. Not much mention of the issues of jobs, etc.

The Outdoors Life, With No Attitude

Slide Show

. . .People like them are drawn to Salida by its year-round outdoors life. There’s fishing and boating in on the Arkansas River, cycling, skiing, hunting and the more passive pastime of soaking in the local hot springs. There are also three federal wilderness areas within about 30 minutes of town. And all of it comes without the potentially suffocating trappings of popular Colorado resort towns like Telluride and Aspen.

“The lovely part of Salida is that it is not just a ski town,” Ms. Backinger said. “It is a wonderful functioning town that is blessed with an incredible ski mountain 20 minutes away. It’s not a cutesy alpine village at the base of a mountain.”

Salida, in south-central Colorado, was once a booming railroad depot, but when rail service mostly ended in the early 1970s, the town entered three decades of decline. During those lean years, outdoor adventurers of all stripes, seeking refuge from Colorado’s more crowded, centrally located resorts along Interstate 70, discovered Salida.

The town attracted national attention in 2006, after two magazines picked it as one of the best places in the country to live. The spotlight didn’t surprise the retirees and adrenaline seekers who for several years had been quietly buying up brick Victorians and downtown commercial buildings for low prices. . .

[Sockeye]

The NY Times may have just ruined Salida. Fu#*@rs. The best thing for nice places is not to be on some East Coast media entity's "Top 10" list.
DIE DEVELOPER SCUM

[froggin4colorado]

What a bummer! And those of us who know Salida know it is beautiful town but not to live in.

[sterlinggirl]

Kiss another town goodbye...

[delta07]

Yup, big bummer. I've always loved Salida, and would love to live there, but can't because of the jobs issue. Now, it may well be doomed to massive tourism and the coined the "next" true CO ski town. I hope this is not the case, but I imagine Salida's face will continue to change in the next 20 years.

[suzco]

Glad to read the replies, though I probably shouldn't say glad, because the responses don't reflect anything to be happy about. They confirm why my stomach flipped over a time or two when I read the article.

Why oh why has Colorado become a media darling?

[jazzlover]

And people wonder why we native Coloradans get sick of seeing Colorado constantly getting "pimped" by a bunch of out-of-staters who couldn't care less that rural Colorado is already an extremely difficult place to live if one has to actually make an income there. So, now a few more hundred trustifarians will be looking to move to Salida--one of Colorado's last mountain towns not already totally trashed by their kind.

[lalahartma]

I don't know, it's pretty cold there!

[DOUBLE H]

Actually, it doesn't have a bad climate, weatherwise. With the NY Times pushing this, I'm with the others on this issue. I'll just remember Salida as it was.

[Shuffler]

Isn't some magazine or website always including Colorado towns on yet another stupid "Best Places..." list?

With lots of people worth about half what they were a year ago and a floundering economy, I don't foresee too many debt lemmings descending on Salida anytime soon.