Californians are moving to Colorado in droves again (Yampa: prices, oil)

[Josseppie]

Time will tell, but I know of 3 big developments in Pueblo alone that will total over 50,000 acers if/when they happen. The annexation on the first big one should happen in the next 3 months then you have 2 R&D parks being planned and Fort Carson will double by 2011! Also, KOAA had a story that this region is expected to see the housing market return before the rest of the country.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Colorado is one of the States I hear people talk about when fleeing here. They continue to raise taxes even in a recession. I hate to say it but CO will be getting our businesses while we get CO Illegal Immigrants as CO enforces different immigration policies.

I moved from CO to CA long ago and CO is on my list of places to move back too. Actually since I still own land there and pay taxes that would be pretty easy to do.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

Colorado is one of the States I hear people talk about when fleeing here. They continue to raise taxes even in a recession. I hate to say it but CO will be getting our businesses while we get CO Illegal Immigrants as CO enforces different immigration policies.

I moved from CO to CA long ago and CO is on my list of places to move back too. Actually since I still own land there and pay taxes that would be pretty easy to do.

I hear that too especially when the cities and developers give so many incentives for companies to move here!

[tfox]

Originally Posted by sheri257

There's no evidence that Californians are invading Colorado in large numbers.

Arizona, Nevada, Texas ... Yes. Colorado? No.

Your data squares with what my experience is. Colorado did have a big surge of in-migration in the mid-'90s to 2000. Then, the dot-com bubble burst, leading to a collapse of our telecommunications industry. It really took until about 2005 for Denver's main industries to get back on its feet again. Colorado Springs still hasn't really recovered from the 2001 bubble burst -- they still have their defense industries running pretty well, but their tech industry along Garden of the Gods Road is still a ghost town. Even Fort Collins had more people at the height of Hewlett-Packard's employment than they do now, though it's currently more diversified into other companies.

The big driver of domestic in-migration (not counting retirees) is jobs. Most people move to where they can find good work. From 2000-2005, Colorado wasn't a great place to find work, quite frankly. Things improved until this latest recession hit us at the end of 2007.

In my opinion, slow growth is not entirely a bad thing. Do we really want to be Las Vegas or Phoenix, with out of control growth has killed livability? While both of those cities still arguably have their good points, livability has undeniably gone down since 2000 in both cases.

In Colorado, despite some natives being restless about immigration, we've really been fairly stable in most of our main cities. That's good. Slow growth can more easily be managed.

[RangerDuke08]

It's an economic factor w/o a doubt. But with a slowdown in economy also comes a slowdown in in-migration and immigration, a natural process.

Eventually the economy has to bounce back, in these days who know when, but I'd hate to see the second wave come say 2020-2030 at a more rapid pace than in the 90s (which it will, another natural process), frankly I don't think it would be sustainable past a certain point even with adequate urban planning which for the most part, the leading city Denver is doing a good job (ie., downtown lofts, huge airport, lightrail expansion, etc) and our second city CO Springs still has ample room to grow.

The main problem with these trends and adequate urban planning is that it may just delay the tipping point, which is 1) livelihood will increase with economic factors until the point where it stabilizes (much like CA). people move in and people move out, we are seeing this trend already. Though more are moving in meaning a high livelihood. 2) a reversal of livelihood where it hits the tipping point, while infrastructure is unable to keep up and traffic, crime, pollution, etc. increases and eventually livelihood diminishes and population slowly decreases (DC for example). Whether you look at growth as a good thing or a bad thing, in sum it can only grow exponentially to a certain point. Some statisticians project the tipping point at 8 million for CO and if so that may only be less than 25 years away.

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by sheri257

Nothing to get excited about folks. Your local press jumped on a non-story.

Domestic Migration by State

I agree with your assessment, but that there chart tells me one thing; Texas took in a lot of people from New Orleans after Katrina hit.

I'd agree that Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and maybe even Idaho took in more than Colorado did because of the bottom line; jobs. The few jobs we did have was building more unsold homes! Brilliant!

There's always gonna be people living on the coasts. But you'd better have lots of money to afford it. If you want water, move between the Missouri and the Mississippi. No guarantees that you won't need a house boat!

I'd like to see a little growth in Pueblo. But in a selfish way, I'd hate to see it grow to the likes of Colorado Springs or Denver. I'd like to see Trinidad grow to about 50K of all places! But only because there would be something, namely jobs, to attract people to it. I'd like to see a few more high tech industries come to Pueblo and Colorado in general; maybe something along the lines of energy production. But that has its pros and cons as well, right?

I'd like to see enough industry here to where the students that graduate from PCC and CSU of Pueblo could actually FIND JOBS down here and not have to move up the front range or to New Jersey or California to find work!!!!!!!!! Until this happens, it's a pipe dream!!!!!!!!!!! If you come to work in Pueblo, unless you're working in medical or education, there's a good chance you'll be asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

[Josseppie]

I agree. A good book I read about development that I would recommend is "Suburban Nation". It has some interesting ideas on growth on urban versus suburban sprawl and I think Pueblo and Colorado Springs could learn from it.

[CMartel2]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

I don't agree with all aspects of the article either, in fact parts of it borders on homophobia when they talk about gay rights. .

You can call them gay rights. I'll call them an encroachment on the traditional family as it has existed in every society on earth time immemorium save the last 15-years.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by CMartel2

You can call them gay rights. I'll call them an encroachment on the traditional family as it has existed in every society on earth time immemorium save the last 15-years.

Well here is what the Gazette had to say about it:

eeyore asks: "Is the editorial staff against gay rights? It seems like you guys are with this statement: 'The San Francisco, gay-rights, hippie-dippy, legalize pot crowd feels right at home in Boulder.'"

eeyore, thanks for the question. We are not the least bit against gay rights. We recently defended gay marriage. We also favor legalizing pot and the "legalize pot crowd," and hippies. My parents are hippies. My regrets if the gay rights reference sounded perjorative. It was just an effort to poke fun at stereotypes.

Wayne Laugesen
editorial page editor
The Gazette

[CMartel2]

It will be interesting to see if Shell can mine and process the shale in the Yampa Valley while maintaining the beauty of the land there. Heaven knows we could put that shale to use in this country... We have just massive quantities of it.