Help! I am torn between ID and CO

[jazzlover]

I have lived in the Rocky Mountain West all of my life. I'm a Colorado native, but I now live in Wyoming. In the last 20-30 years of living and travelling the region, some general observations tend to hold true:

1. The decent paying jobs are almost always in the cities. Exceptions are certain professional jobs (Drs., etc.), mining jobs and oil/gas field jobs. In the smaller towns, government jobs (that's right) usually pay the best--teachers, Forest Service, etc.

2. Almost all of the cities have grown "badly" in the last 30 years. They are surburban look-alike polyglots that are totally dependent on the automobile. Traffic is usually bad, and auto-caused air pollution is often a problem. Many Rocky Mountain cities have crime rates worse than the national average.

3. Real estate prices in rural areas generally reflect the beauty of the area--the more pretty the setting, the higher the price. Those prices are generally unaffordable to most anyone who actually expects to make a living there. If you pick one of those spots, you'd better have a hefty pension or income from outside sources to support you. The local economy won't do it.

4. Not surprisingly, the "resort" areas tend to be sociologically unhealthy. Lots of drug problems and other issues caused by the "idle rich" and their children having lots of time and money on their hands. Also, most such areas tend to have an "underclass" of minimum-wage workers (many who are illegal aliens these days) that work in the service industries. Not surprisingly, a lot of these folks turn to illegal activities (i.e., drug dealing) to supplement their meager incomes. There usually isn't much of a middle class--it's the "haves" and "have-nots".

5. General living costs tend to be higher in the Rocky Mountain region than many other areas, whether one is in a city or rural area.

6. "Turnover" is significant in many resort communities. Tourists visit and decide they want to live there because it looks better than where they are (California, Texas, etc.). They move to area, pay inflated prices for real estate and often start a small business because there are no decent paying jobs. After a few years, they figure out that they are working 12-16 hour days and are still going downhill financially. Finally, they sell out and move (often back to where they came from--wiser, but poorer). Often, the only money they make is when they sell out--to the next "greater fool" trying to live the same dream. The old locals call the phenomenon "the Paradise Syndrome." This has been going on for at least 40 years in Colorado, and is becoming more and more common in places like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. It is happening is some places in Utah, but not so much in the staunchly Mormon rural areas of that state.

7. There are still a few decent rural "pockets" in the region that haven't gotten totally crazy and unaffordable--however, even those tend to be more expensive than other rural locales in the U.S. Those decent spots are generally in the less scenic areas. There are relatively few of them left in Colorado; more are available in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico. I haven't seen a totally drop-dead gorgeous spot in the Rocky Mountain West that is inexpensive for about 20 years.

One last note: the rural Rocky Mountain West--excepting the areas that are heavy in oil, coal, and gas production--are absolutely economically dependent on plentiful and cheap gasoline, along with generous transfer payments (pensions, investment income, etc.) and discretionary income from outside sources to bolster the local economy and real estate markets. When any one or more of those disappear--and that is very likely in the next few years--much of the Mountain West's rural economy (and population) may collapse back to levels of 30 or 40 years ago. That happened back in 1893 when the silver market collapsed and it took until the 1950's for much of the region to recover economically. There is an historical precedent. I am fortunate enough to have a relatively stable job in one of the "less-crazy" communities of the region. I consciously left an area that was moving from an agricultural/mining economy to a "resort" mentality. Given a choice between Colorado or Idaho, I would probably choose Idaho. However, if I was from somewhere else in the U.S., I would seriously consider moving to someplace other than the Rocky Mountain region now. It is, in many ways, "paradise lost."