Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I experienced Colorado Springs for the first time ever back in March. I was amazed by the place and in many ways preferred what I saw out of Colorado Springs to Denver even.
I've lived in COS since 2002 (while married), having previously lived in Denver from '96 - 2000 (while single), and could not possibly agree with you more regarding COS being vastly superior to Denver in terms of "quality of life" metrics that are important to me personally (as a married person with kids). It's like the goldilocks porridge thing. Denver is too big, WAY too congested literally anywhere you go. It might as well be Dallas or LA (I suppose some people like that impossibly congested urban thing but ... shudder ... not me). That being said, "small" towns with population of 10K or below might be "nice and all" but how on earth am I supposed to make a living? COS is generally in that "just right" category - big enough to support a real economy (despite other disgruntled posters who can only badmouth it) but small enough to be an actual "livable" place (I have a 12 minute commute to downtown office from home on Westside. I have too many doctor clients (who live and practice medicine in COS) who make $500K to as high as $900K per year to believe COS has no economy. Sure we don't have Fortune 500 companies like Portland has Nike but when self-employed professionals can thrive (as I and almost all of my dozens of friends in town do) then the economy is plenty healthy enough. Income is a function of education, gumption, and grit - you typically need at least two of the three and usually all three, unless you've got some sort of nepotism family thing on your side, as many folks seem to have (and good for them). You need just as much education, gumption, and grit to make it in Denver as you do in COS. Denver doesn't just hand you a high-income for showing up, and neither does COS or anywhere else.
All those griping about water, do you know something about the pending failure of the Southern Delivery System that I don't know? The one that is apparently finally online and providing access to the water COS has owned for decades in the Pueblo Resevoir? Water in the west is always an issue but to says its an impossible problem to solve and that COS cannot possibly continue to add population is, I think, not the whole story.
People gripe when a city is losing population (Detroit, many others in the former "industrial" belt) and people gripe when a city is adding population (COS, anywhere else that grows). Pretty much, people gripe regardless of the question being asked or the issue being discussed. There will be positives to population growth (if you think rising home prices and longer commutes are "positives") and there will be negatives. By the time COS becomes unlivable like the Denver's, Houston's, and LA's of the world, the year will probably be 2060 and it'll be a problem for my grandkids to solve, where to go live next. For the time being, a mid-size city like COS is just optimal for me and my family, like the porridge that's just right. (bear in mind, that does not make "COS" perfect by any means ooooh noooo, just "waaaayyyy less bad" than the mega-cities have become).
I've lived in COS since 2002 (while married), having previously lived in Denver from '96 - 2000 (while single), and could not possibly agree with you more regarding COS being vastly superior to Denver in terms of "quality of life" metrics that are important to me personally (as a married person with kids). It's like the goldilocks porridge thing. Denver is too big, WAY too congested literally anywhere you go. It might as well be Dallas or LA (I suppose some people like that impossibly congested urban thing but ... shudder ... not me). That being said, "small" towns with population of 10K or below might be "nice and all" but how on earth am I supposed to make a living? COS is generally in that "just right" category - big enough to support a real economy (despite other disgruntled posters who can only badmouth it) but small enough to be an actual "livable" place (I have a 12 minute commute to downtown office from home on Westside. I have too many doctor clients (who live and practice medicine in COS) who make $500K to as high as $900K per year to believe COS has no economy. Sure we don't have Fortune 500 companies like Portland has Nike but when self-employed professionals can thrive (as I and almost all of my dozens of friends in town do) then the economy is plenty healthy enough. Income is a function of education, gumption, and grit - you typically need at least two of the three and usually all three, unless you've got some sort of nepotism family thing on your side, as many folks seem to have (and good for them). You need just as much education, gumption, and grit to make it in Denver as you do in COS. Denver doesn't just hand you a high-income for showing up, and neither does COS or anywhere else. .
That is the thing about Colorado Springs it is a city that is heavily-dependent on government.
I absolutely love the scenery in Colorado Springs and it is a huge bargain on housing prices/taxes for retirees but the city is the ultimate economic failure.
225,000 private-sector jobs for a metro of 700,000 people and not one fortune 500 company.
Colorado Springs has a gross metropolitan product of $39,000 a year per-capita
By contrast, Des Moines in fly-over Iowa has a gross metropolitan product per-capita of $67,000
Sioux Falls in the middle of South Dakota at $65,000 per-capita
Casper, WY $76,000 per-capita
Boulder, CO $66,000 per-capita
Hillariously, Colorado Springs can't even compete with Wheeling, West Virginia or Mobile, Alabama economically. Even those metro areas have far higher-per capita gross metropolitan products then Colorado Springs.
I think it is always interesting when people apply the circumstances on a small social group and apply it to an entire city.
I am sure people who live in the Palmer Woods section of Detroit could also say that they have rich friends but it is not a representation of an entire city.
I think it is comical and the leaders of Colorado Springs should be ashamed that they basically have an economy that is dependent on the government.
I am sure those 900K a year physicians paychecks mainly comes from government-subsidized exchanges and Medicare.
Every city that is the size of Colorado Springs has alot of people who work in the medical field. Having lived in Omaha I can tell you that the medical infrastructure of Colorado Springs while better then it was is still a drop in the bucket compared to Omaha which has about the same amount of people in it's city limits.
Last edited by lovecrowds; 06-13-2016 at 07:53 PM..
Great summation post TCHP! I lot of my thoughts summed up there.
A few things:
I don't think water will be a huge issue, at least till we're over the million mark. The southern delivery system should add a big capacity influx and they could always raise prices if they need a decrease.
As far as homes in the woods, I really don't know where else they can build. Anywhere untouched remaining would be quite a commute. I think that is pretty much built out. As far as fires, they'll take out a couple hundred more houses in the future. The people who didn't thin before the fires still haven't thinned out after them. There's just too many homes close to too much contiguous fuel sources.
Concerning roads, they aren't too bad, but they aren't as good as other similar sized places in the US. They really need to fix the surfaces though. The pot holes are beyond what should be reasonable for the developed world. That being said, they seem to be at about capacity now, and I really don't know what they can do to add on. They can't really make a freeway though town or expand the current arteries. And a ring road.... I don't know. I foresee traffic getting significantly worse in the next 20 years.
As far as the economy... it's ok. Sure there's high end doctors and software people, but there's a whole whole lot more of meh jobs and a whole swarm of people looking to fill them, more so than many other parts of the nation.
CO Springs isn't going to fill up with people who don't have jobs. If they don't have jobs, they won't be coming. The retiree influx is an bit of an unkown, but that has been the big portion of the recent growth and will make up a lot of the future growth. I think now is unusual because of the baby boomer demographic and the low rates coupled with bargain price/sqft ratios.
I don't think we'd see the current trends continue though unless there's a growth in companies. On a side note, there's been rumblings of Kinder Morgan moving out, potentially marking the exit of the only big energy company and one of the few core companies downtown.
As far as the way ahead, I don't want to see another Denver, like everyone else. I live in Denver now, and it's pretty neat, but we don't need 2 of them. I wouldn't recommend too much focus on downtown. I would like to see some growth of offices, attractions, and commercial centers around the edges, along northgate, Mesa Ridge, and the East side.
If all they do is through out more large single family homes though (like the last 15 years have been), it'll just be more sprawl and congestion and IMO the population increase would be a negative.
Thanks Phil P. I've been very fortunate in my life to have worked for some major corporations here in the Springs that have afforded me the chance to do temp work assignments on both coasts. I've also spent time visiting relatives in the mid-west and mid-south. With all those experiences, I'm always glad to come back to the Springs and I have a hard time imagining living somewhere else. Like others, I'm glad to call this place home and like how it has grown into what it is. That isn't to say it is the perfect place and it doesn't have its issues. Its been through growing pains in the past and will no doubt have more in the future. Some of these problems will be unique to the Springs and some are universal to growth and our country in general.
lovecrowds, you certainly have access to a lot of data that you post up. On the surface, none of it appears very positive, but IMO, it is a fairly broad brush that is not overlaid with other data points to paint a more complete picture. For example, when your data points say Cos is 9% behind the wage growth curve, does that that include or discount the large percentage of young military personnel that are only earning $24k a year that may drag down overall averages? Since governemnt payrolls seem to be a point of contention, have you discounted those figures to do a more direct comparison to other locales? You also seem to munge together Cos and Cos Metro Statistical Area interchangeably, but the two are distinctly different. Cos proper is less than 450,000 where as the Cos Metro Statistical Area of nearly 700k that is often quoted consists of all of El Paso County and all of Teller County. Which, come to think of it, can also be a drag on wage issue reviews when you begin looking the incomes inequality that place like Divide, Victor, Calhan, and Yoder may contribute to those totals compared to Cos itself. We also have a distinctly different population density within these two counties compared to some of the others you are putting up for comparison. That also is a factor that can alter these data points.
It would be interesting, to me at least, to look at some of your wage data over time from around 1970 to present. I suspect that Cos would reflect some other trends seen within the same ebb and flow nationally as far as prosperity and decline.
Does the Springs lack some in job growth, sure. It often has. Heck, the whole point of Cos existence for its first 75 years was as a playground and health resort for the rich. In my opinion, many things locally, nationally, and internationally are slowly disintegrating into a pre WW2 economic system and IMO, the prosperity of the 1950-70s was more of a fluke than the norm. Cos has sometimes it has had surges that defy national trends, but more often than not, it follows or slightly lags them. Are things more expensive or less profitable here and in Denver, sure, always have been to some degree. You've got enough history here that you should have know for a long time now that many, many people are will to take less to live here for access to the things that make here, here. What is the equilibrium point where the cost does not equal the benefit? I don't know and I'm sure it varies for everyone.
Without the military, this city would be very little.
I love the scenery in Colorado Springs and the for retirees they get a tremendous amount of house for the money and the property taxes are extremely low.
It has a very weak economy though and it gets poorer by the year.
There is huge upward pressure on rents because the people moving here are renting old apartments. There is upward pressure for cheap homes causing the prices to go up but the more expensive areas in Colorado Springs seem to have quite a few for-sale-signs with huge price reductions. Hence, why this city in my opinion is a match made in heaven for retirees.
Colorado Springs is perfect for retirees and pensioners but I can't think of a city that it's size that has a worse economic record then this city.
Even rust belt cities like Toledo and Lansing have economies far superior to this city.
Colorado Springs also has an exodus of wealth year after year. The in-migration to El Paso County has less income then the out-migration.
The people who run this city seem to be very satisfied with their 275,000 non-farm employment economy with 700,000 people.
Architects are having to turn down jobs here. And it's not through the government; house next door to me is being sold to a couple doctors from the east coast. I personally feel the economy is a bit better than you are describing; what is the significance of non-farm payroll that you keep showing? Explain, thanks...
I'm shocked to hear that Lansing has a better economy- "far superior" as you say... the school districts there are suffering, and the auto industry closing has been a monster hit to the area. Interesting.
Again, are we talking about Colorado Springs or Colorado Springs Metro Statistical Area? You cannot mix the figures between the two or you get inaccurate results. One is estimated at 450k and one is estimated at 700k. That is a fairly huge swing in base figures that will alter any calculated results significantly.
Perhaps I am not reading the figures correctly, but when I looked at USB of Labor stats for Colorado Springs, they seem to show civilian employment at 324k and non farm employment at 275k, out of a city of 450k. Notice I said city, not statistical area. To me, those figures looks more like 72% of the local population are not employed by the government. I am assuming they are using a gross population figure and not some scrubbed, magic governmental calculation. Frankly, I'm surprised we have that many farm workers in this city.
Could Cos use more and better employment, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. But I don't think it is as bleak a picture as you are painting. IMO, as I pointed out in my initial post, the range and variety of entry to mid level, well paying jobs is not as good now as it once was. I have contacted several members of City Government as well as Economic Development Committee members top inquire about why their efforts aren't put into pursuing more quality and more diversified primary employers instead of bringing in more call centers and more divisions to the bases. I also work with other entities to push other agendas that may help attract other businesses. FWIW, these entities typically aren't willing to discuss those issues with you if you ever bother to try, but I suggest you try it anyway.
Is the military significant to Cos? With six bases, yes. So what. They are a primary employer whose volume of payroll helps support an amount of secondary employment through out the city which gives us all a broader range of selections in dining, recreation, healthcare, housing, etc. So do the myriad assortment of evangelical entities, even if you disagree with their dogma. But the military is far from the only game in town. In fact, looking at your provided figures, I'd say they are only 28% of the jobs here. Statistically that is a lot, and it would hurt badly if they all pulled up and left, but I think we could all agree that even if things were reduced, they likely would not disappear altogether. So things are not as bleak as you make it sound. Although I would have to wonder if USBLS figures include or discount local and county government as well as Federal and military as that could further change calculations.
Not sure where you figure the exodus of wealth figures from. I've heard of some pretty wealthy people who have significant investments in Cos and are increasing them on a routine basis, such as the Hill family, Hunt Family, and several LLC investment firms from California. I'd also say Perry Sanders and Phil Anschutz, who are pumping a load of money into their investments here as well, are pretty confident we have a positive outlook of things going well in the near and long terms.
No Fortune 500 companies here? Sorry, but I have to disagree with you here as well. According to the Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance, we have over 30 of these within our area such as Wells Fargo, Lockheed Martin, USAA, Time Warner, and Oracle. Are they headquarters, no, but they are primary employers and they are located here and employ people here.
So, even if we take all your links and bleak outlooks at face value, what are you doing to improve it? You have no problem telling us how much it sucks here. Do you have any suggestion to make it better here or are you simply trying to scare people away so it will revert back to what it was because I'm pretty sure that isn't happening.
So, even if we take all your links and bleak outlooks at face value, what are you doing to improve it? You have no problem telling us how much it sucks here. Do you have any suggestion to make it better here or are you simply trying to scare people away so it will revert back to what it was because I'm pretty sure that isn't happening.
I do think Colorado Springs has a very bleak economy. The numbers are for the Colorado Springs Metropolitan Area from BLS .
I do love the mountain scenery in Colorado Springs and it is a great city for rich retirees who live mansions for a rock-bottom price with very low taxes on large lots but the economy is terrible here especially considering many are saying this is the national economic boom before economic doom sets in.
There is an outmigration of wealth according to IRS statistics
Average in-migration tax return in El Paso County: $46,000. Out-migration: $47,000
Single people don't really move to El Paso County so that is pretty bad if the typical El Paso County is married filing jointly.
Despite all the talk of a bunch of rich elite moving to Denver the in-migration average for tax returns was $55,600
The same statistics show Douglas County in-migration of $87,000. Boulder at $65,000. Larimer at $56,000 but it looks with Fort Collins that the average in-migration tax return is $5,000 then the average outgoing tax return.
I don't think there is a solution to what ails Colorado Springs economically. I mean UCCS is a tiny university of about 10,000 students and then they have the tiny Colorado College.
Lansing has a metro of 464,000 people and there are 231,000 people on the payrolls. Which is exactly 50% of the population, compared to Colorado Springs with just 39% of people on the payrolls.
I also looked at the El Paso per-capita incomes over the last several decades.
They are now at 91% of the national per-capita income.
During the short-lived economic boom Colorado Springs peaked at 101% in the year 2000
Colorado Springs peak economic year was 1983 when it had a per-capita income which was 103% of the national average during the Reagan administration.
I don't really see any potential for Colorado Springs other then being a retirement destination.
The city has very little to offer outside of very nice mountain scenery, big homes with low price tags and extremely low property taxes.
My 2 cents is this place works really well for those with jobs where they can telecommute, working from home. It's close to major medical complexes in Denver with a good cost of living here. It's the reason we moved here. Most people in our neighborhood who are still of working age all do telecommuting so I could see CoS growing if the telecommuting movement grows.
All those griping about water, do you know something about the pending failure of the Southern Delivery System that I don't know? The one that is apparently finally online and providing access to the water COS has owned for decades in the Pueblo Reservoir? Water in the west is always an issue but to says its an impossible problem to solve and that COS cannot possibly continue to add population is, I think, not the whole story.
EPA estimates the average family uses 400 gallons a day. If we use lovecrowds population figure of 700k, our current usage is 280,000,000 gallons daily and that does not include farm usage, irrigation, parks and recreation, and industrial users. Springs Utilities estimates the Southern Delivery System will meet our basic consumption needs for the next 25-30 years if we only grow at a rate of 1.9% annually and if we continue to get average snowfall and we do not end up in litigation for any further rights to be exercised downstream. .95% of their projected growth rate is simple reproduction of existing households, so that leaves us with only a .95% annual growth rate allowable for the system to meet its objectives for the next three decades. That is 19% per decade, which is our low average. Until 2010, we were growing at a 38% per decade average rate. Jump back to our previous growth rates for any reason, get a few years of mediocre snowfall , or end up in court with another state, and that time frame could be reduced radically. Kansas and Nebraska are already suing us in Federal court for water consumption utilized in weed cultivation and California still hasn't recovered from their issues yet. IMO, its still a risky proposition. It doesn't keep me awake at night, but it does make me scratch my head at times when I hear that we are enroute to become a major metro area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovecrowds
The number of infomation jobs has gone from 14,500 in 2001 to 6,600 now.
Finance Jobs from 18,000 to 17,000
I also looked at the El Paso per-capita incomes over the last several decades.
They are now at 91% of the national per-capita income.
During the short-lived economic boom Colorado Springs peaked at 101% in the year 2000
Colorado Springs peak economic year was 1983 when it had a per-capita income which was 103% of the national average during the Reagan administration.
Interesting you quote information and finance jobs. In that same time frame and in lock step with the others figure's peak and subsequent decline explained above, manufacturing has slipped out of the area in massive amounts. Not due to any direct fault of local government, but it has followed suite with so many other offshoring efforts throughout the nation. For our casual readers or recent transplants, Cos had a large and significant employment base in technology manufacturing that was equal to that found in northern Colorado now. We were growing so steadily that we were being called Silicon Mtn. The employers included such giants as Ampex, Honeywell, Digital, Apple, Cray, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, LMS/Plasmon, Brown Disc, Aeroflex, Intel, Quantum, Spectranetics, Atmel, Synthese and these companies all supported 1000-2500 person payrolls. To support their operations were thousands of local machines shops, sub contractors and small suppliers. Nearly all of them are gone or reduced to such minor figures as to be just be a blip on the overall employment picture.
The rest of your points and links...I'm obviously not explaining my perspective well enough for you to provide the detail needed, so I'll just drop it.
IMO, Cos has missed a golden opportunity to make it even a more preferred place than Boulder is, and sadly that mis-step can never be recovered.
As I mentioned earlier, for 75 years Cos was the playground of the rich and famous of their day. The core downtown area was a shining example of magnificent Victorian and Edwardian architecture. After WW2, the city fathers began dogged pursuit of military infrastructure to boom the town. The crown jewel of this pursuit was the acquisition of the Air Force Academy in the early 1950s. As the US was entering the jet age and space exploration was on the horizon, there was no way the city was going to sit idly by on their antique laurels and a massive scale of urban renewal took hold in the city over the next 25 years. A large percentage of Cos's historic commercial structures were demolished and replaced with shining new glass and steel examples. Only small buildings throughout downtown and Tejon street in particular were spared the demolition ball.
Now that most these structures are gone, most of what we have left of the old commercial architecture is the Tejon district. There are a few outlyers like the Cheyenne Building (Phantom Canyon) or the Roundhouse ( Rocky Mt Brewery), the Carnegie Library( still a library), and numerous churches, but most lie along Tejon. The opportunities for a Larimer Square, Pearl Street, or even a Pike style Public Market that could have really distinguished the city are gone. But, at least what we have left is being saved and repurposed. Since most of that is gone, I anxiously await renewed interest in downtown projects that have been shelved for the last decade.
The bigger concern to me overall is what development can be done to restore the lost commercial enterprises along the Academy Blvd corridor from Pikes Peak to Austin Bluffs. This was the equivilent of the current Academy stretch from from Woodman to I-25 and now it is a virtual ghost town.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
