Colorado Springs - The Negatives .

[Kathy884]

DH recently retired. I work in IT and although I prefer going into the office, I could work remotely. Knowing that DH would be retiring we seriously looked at Colorado Springs as a possible place to relocate too. The main pluses were a reasonable sized city with some cultural amenities, nice climate, mountains nearby, and a seemingly reasonable cost of living (portable job, so the fact that jobs in my field pay less than what I am currently making was not a factor). We used to live in Denver back in the late 80s and loved living there (climate and mountain access). Jobs took us elsewhere, though. And we ruled Denver out as a place to go back too -- too expensive now and increased traffic in area and to mountains decreases the appeal too. Denver was out, but maybe the nearby, smaller, and nice city of COS could be the place?

What I saw as negatives when we looked around were: even though the summers are way more pleasant than where we currently live, it was still hotter than I like in COS with some humidity too, too many people moving to the area (a new popular in place to move too) driving up real estate prices and multiple offers on reasonable homes that seemed nice -- it looked like it would be a real pain to find and buy a home in COS, lots of housing in our price range seemed way too cookie cutter(new housing and newer areas in particular), not many trees except in older areas that were pricey (new city, so not a lot of older areas), too much pot smoking around even though not legal in the city, not all that keen about it being a center for the religious right (although maybe we would never even notice that), although decent cultural amenities - less than what we currently have.

All and all, our conclusion was that COS looked like a perfectly nice place and that if a job or being closer to family or something like that was what we were moving for, we wouldn't hesitate. We though didn't have a job or family out there that we wanted to be near, and our overall conclusion after looking at COS and some other places was that where we currently live is pretty darn nice and the grass doesn't for us now and where we are currently in our lives look greener elsewhere. Looking around for me just gave me a greater appreciation for what I currently have and was really taking for granted. Maybe we might make a move some day, but it's not something that we are trying to make happen or actively pursing now.