Why the "split" between "old" and "new" Coloradans . . . (Denver: ski resort, house)

[rgb123]

The walmarts and home depots appeared in my town in Illinois too -- I don't think it was newcomers that demanded that. I think this just 'happened' everywhere. I think it is easy to blame a lot of stuff on newcomers if a place has changed that much and there has been a lot of people moving form another place. But its just population growth in general and trends that are happening everywhere.

No one asked me if I wanted my grade school to be replaced with a home depot and a few strip malls....but it was, and I'm pretty sure only a handful (if that) of Californians were crazy enough to move to this part of the country. Most of the growth in my area is just population growth....generations kids, having kids, people leaving the city, maybe a small handful of people from out of state.

Guess what, we still got a lot of unwanted development, car dealers, townhomes (unheard of in my area 20 years ago) and super walmarts. It is the trend and not something that newcomers are bringing with them.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by rgb123

The walmarts and home depots appeared in my town in Illinois too -- I don't think it was newcomers that demanded that. I think this just 'happened' everywhere. I think it is easy to blame a lot of stuff on newcomers if a place has changed that much and there has been a lot of people moving form another place. But its just population growth in general and trends that are happening everywhere.

No one asked me if I wanted my grade school to be replaced with a home depot and a few strip malls....but it was, and I'm pretty sure only a handful (if that) of Californians were crazy enough to move to this part of the country. Most of the growth in my area is just population growth....generations kids, having kids, people leaving the city, maybe a small handful of people from out of state.

Guess what, we still got a lot of unwanted development, car dealers, townhomes (unheard of in my area 20 years ago) and super walmarts. It is the trend and not something that newcomers are bringing with them.

Thank you for pointing that out, rgb123. Even in my hometown area, the Wal-Marts, Targets, and Home Depots have sprung up. And I can guarantee you VERY FEW people are moving there from Cali or TX or anywhere else. H***, in my home county, which borders both Ohio and W. Virginia, 85% of the people were born in Pennsylvania, probably most of them right there in Beaver County.

[CTC]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

pittnurse,

You are right. Attitudes used to be different about alcohol, just as they were about smoking and a whole lot of other things. It's a wonder some people managed to live to ripe old ages. My post was meant (in hopefully somewhat of a humorous vein) so show how much things have changed--admittedly, some things for the better. (For example, some Colorado water used to REALLY be bad--I don't miss that.) My point is that all of those things--good or bad--were part of the heritage of Coloradans like me, who grew up in an era much different, though not that long ago, from today. As I have thought about this, I realize that the Colorado "baby-boomers" of my age came of age right at the time when Colorado essentially made the transition from what it had been for probably 75 years before to what it has become today. I feel privileged to have seen Colorado before that change became so pervasive. Much heritage has been lost.

Many people have tried to "sanitize" the state's heritage or have tried to restate its history to something it was not. The place was one of ranchers, loggers, miners, railroaders, farmers, and roughnecks who worked hard and played hard. Many of the bankers, business people and professionals in the towns and cities traced their heritage back only a generation to those people. The stuff people read about in the western history books involved people only a generation or two removed from then current Coloradans. A friend's grandfather was directly involved in the cattle and sheep wars. A businessperson in town was the grandson of one of Butch Cassidy's gang members. Another resident (for a time living only a block from me) was a direct decendent of Baby Doe Tabor. The grandmother of a landlord I had was a survivor of the Ludlow Massacre. So, when I write of Colorado's "frontier" history and heritage, for me it's not an abstraction or some stuffed and mounted museum piece.

Yeah, even pretty recently, people had different attitudes about a lot of things. Colorado was a hard-drinking, hard living place, populated by people tough enough to match the mountains. And--those mountains!, so breathtakingly beautiful that you thought you were in heaven, and sometimes so treachorous that they could send you there in a heartbeat. Mountains, scarred, maybe--but not tamed, domesticated, homogenized, and suburbanized. I pity the fact that younger people will never get to know the Colorado that I knew. For all of its good and bad, it was one hell of a great place to grow up around. So much of it wasn't an amusement park-like sideshow--it still was the real thing!

Hell we don't even have home mail delivery yet in Gypsum-sounds like the old days are still here!

[Timberwolf232]

I think a lot of the recent changes anywhere, even here in MT where I moved to from CO years ago are due in part to the new mechanism of communications... AKA the internet.

You can buy stocks, land, homes, and every other thing imaginable from this network in the comfort of your own home. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

Sad though, that through all of this new technology people forget their roots, and kids miss out on the things we used to do OUTSIDE after school. Playing ball, fishing, hunting, shooting gophers and prairie dogs for local farmers and ranchers, a bicycle was FREEDOM! Didn't have to worry about a helmet, just pick it up and go. We were little adventurers with imagination! And what was high school without good old fashioned bonfires?! A fistfight was just that, no guns involved and the cops didn't arrest us for settling a little score... shoot most of the time you'd get in a fight with another kid and were the best of friends the next day.

Man I miss the way things were, all this change, new laws, etc... is kind of freaky to me. I just hope my kids have as much fun growing up as I did.

[RemoteMountainLiving]

Originally Posted by CTC

Hell we don't even have home mail delivery yet in Gypsum-sounds like the old days are still here!

Gypsum is much larger than than it used to be, do you still have to walk to the post office? The growth of the very small Western Slope towns is unbelievable. It used to be more Mayberry sized.

[Chris19]

Originally Posted by rgb123

The walmarts and home depots appeared in my town in Illinois too -- I don't think it was newcomers that demanded that. I think this just 'happened' everywhere. I think it is easy to blame a lot of stuff on newcomers if a place has changed that much and there has been a lot of people moving form another place. But its just population growth in general and trends that are happening everywhere.

No one asked me if I wanted my grade school to be replaced with a home depot and a few strip malls....but it was, and I'm pretty sure only a handful (if that) of Californians were crazy enough to move to this part of the country. Most of the growth in my area is just population growth....generations kids, having kids, people leaving the city, maybe a small handful of people from out of state.

Guess what, we still got a lot of unwanted development, car dealers, townhomes (unheard of in my area 20 years ago) and super walmarts. It is the trend and not something that newcomers are bringing with them.

Very good point. This has happend in the Upper Midwest also. The Wal-Marts and Home Depots have gone up in the larger cities, including in cities that are stagnant in population growth. The growing cities see more of this. Many of the smaller towns away from interstate access and with lack of other options than farming are dying and the advent of Wal-Marts and Home Depots are certainly hastening this trend and many Main Streets becoming empty.

I am sure that there are a number of towns in Colorado, especially in Eastern Colorado (where agriculture is a big part of the economy) that are experiencing decline like small towns in the rural and less travelled areas of the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

Even though I am not a resident of Colorado, I have been there a number of times to see how it has changed. I personally liked how Colorado was 10-20 years ago as opposed to now. I am not against growth, but think that it should managed and orderly. This will save taxpayers money in the long run and avoid a whole host of other problems with unchecked growth.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Chris19

Very good point. This has happend in the Upper Midwest also. The Wal-Marts and Home Depots have gone up in the larger cities, including in cities that are stagnant in population growth. The growing cities see more of this. Many of the smaller towns away from interstate access and with lack of other options than farming are dying and the advent of Wal-Marts and Home Depots are certainly hastening this trend and many Main Streets becoming empty.

I am sure that there are a number of towns in Colorado, especially in Eastern Colorado (where agriculture is a big part of the economy) that are experiencing decline like small towns in the rural and less travelled areas of the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

Even though I am not a resident of Colorado, I have been there a number of times to see how it has changed. I personally liked how Colorado was 10-20 years ago as opposed to now. I am not against growth, but think that it should managed and orderly. This will save taxpayers money in the long run and avoid a whole host of other problems with unchecked growth.

For a textbook example of "orderly" planned suburban sprawl you have to visit Johnson County KS, SW of the Kansas City metro. It is the ultimate example of sprawville even though it is "planned." In the JOCO the numbered streets range from 47th street all the way to 215th steet. The suburban sprawl has not reached 215th yet, but it is getting close.

[Chris19]

Plains 10,

You have a good point, but there are some areas that are naturally going to grow due to their location and proximity to larger cities such as the area in Johnson CO. Kansas. I have been in the general area and understand the concept. I think that planned development is better than having everything hodge-podged and then having to put roads and infrastructure in later (which gets costly and messy later on instead of early in the process). Many growing cities in South Dakota, including Sioux Falls have comprehensive land use plans that guide growth in their municipalities and areas where the city has joint zoning jurisdiction with the counties (to limit growth outside of city limits which growth in that area is costly to local township and county governments). I see your point, but think that having a plan and having it done orderly with foresight is better than having a hodge-podged mess.

[TaraMoon]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

Thank you, vegaspilgrim and I_LUVNM, I do like to write, though my genre is non-fiction. I actually do write a fair amount as part of my current career, but it is not the historical and "current affairs" writing that I enjoy the most. As to comments that I'm paranoid, etc., etc., well, let me throw this out:

No one would argue with me that our current lifestyle (in Colorado and elsewhere, but certainly in the Rocky Mountain West as much or more so than anyplace) is currently totally dependent on cheap and plentiful oil. Well, today Venezuela announced that it had completed nationalization of its oil fields, those fields being the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere. The Venezuelan President, during the announcement was quoted as saying "Down with America." Great. Just a few days ago, the press reported (way too quietly, in my opinion) that the off-shore Mexican oil field that supplies a large portion of U.S. oil imports was in serious decline, and was--in fact--declining at a rate greater than previously anticipated. Production out of the North Slope fields of Alaska and in the North Sea have also peaked. Similar concerns were also expressed about some of the Saudi fields, among the largest in the world. Meanwhile, worldwide oil demand continues to INCREASE.

This is like everybody partying the night before Pearl Harbor. When are we going to wake up to what's about to happen? If not pretty soon, we may not WIN this one. Paranoid? Maybe. But, like the old saw, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to git ya!"

I agree that we are on the verge of impending catastrophe. Having grown up in a small midwestern town/rural area (small meaning less than 2,000 people, not 200,000) and living in one now (I returned to care for an elderly parent who has since passed away), but also having lived in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area, and a small town Southern California mountains, I contend that the best place to be when it hits the fan is a small town/rural area. A friend of mine disagrees, and argues that large urban areas provide the best economic opportunities for survival. I place a qualifier on my contention that the best place to be is a small town/rural area: it's only the best place if you fit in and I certainly didn't fit in in either of the small towns in which I've lived. Therein lies the problem.

I want to relocate. I am nearing retirement age but will still have to work for awhile. I'm well-educated and a writer, but, as you know, writing is not an entirely reliable means of providing an income. Therefore, if possible (and that's a big if), I would like to telecommute. I am capable of functioning in a city, but I feel most at home in a rural setting. I love the mountains, the woods, and the desert.

Despite having lived in California, I am not a latte-sipping, trendy, consumption-driven airhead. Nor am I a conservative, provincial, go-with-the-herd Midwesterner. I'm definitely not herd material. I am an individualist who enjoys some intellectual companionship. So far, I haven't found a place that meets my needs. I don't want to live in a place filled with busybodies, nor do I want to live in a place where your neighbors will let you freeze to death if your furnace goes out and you don't happen to be a Bible thumper.

I've been following this discussion about the old and the new Colorado with some interest and wonder if there's a place in Colorado that meets my needs and isn't economically out-of-sight.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by TaraMoon

I've been following this discussion about the old and the new Colorado with some interest and wonder if there's a place in Colorado that meets my needs and isn't economically out-of-sight.

Finding someplace decent that is not also "economically out-of-sight" is not easy in Colorado. I also think that many now seemingly quite desirable spots will not be so when energy starts its REAL upward spiral in price and decline in supplies and reliability. Many rural areas will suffer when that happens (along with all of suburbia). Colorado's double whammy there is that so many of its communities are reliant on tourism, real estate development, and construction--none of which will fare well in an energy-short environment.

If one takes into account those factors (and I do), the list of desirable Colorado communities is short and getting shorter. The town I am currently staying in on a temporary assignment (and one that I lived in for a number of years awhile back) is one of those towns that has gone from my "desirable" list to my "questionable" list for the future. I don't have a "great" place to suggest--the few on my potential list all have pretty significant "issues."