Realtor.com economists predict Colorado Springs housing market as #8 hottest in nation next year (Denver: rental, loans)

[BornintheSprings]

Originally Posted by MountainEarth

You have no idea what will be lost.

Oh for goodness sake

[abcdefg567]

Originally Posted by BornintheSprings

I would like the Springs to keep up the growth and become a real city very exciting times!

Since you grew up here, I think...can you share your thoughts on what makes it not a real city?

[BornintheSprings]

Originally Posted by abcdefg567

Since you grew up here, I think...can you share your thoughts on what makes it not a real city?

Dull downtown bad to nonexistent transit infrastructure emphasis on urban sprawl. The springs feels more like an overgrown town than a city. I am excited with all the new projects going on downtown but we still have a long way to go. Granted I have a friend who is from Greely Colorado who visited me a year ago and she told me the Springs felt like a giant metropolis so perspective varies but most people I know and talk feel the same as I do.

[MountainEarth]

Originally Posted by BornintheSprings

Oh for goodness sake

If you like big cities, then why don't you move to one? Life's to short to live in a place that's a "dull overgrown town" to you.

[BornintheSprings]

Originally Posted by MountainEarth

If you like big cities, then why don't you move to one? Life's to short to live in a place that's a "dull overgrown town" to you.

I have my own business all my family is here I am not leaving. I toyed with the idea a few years ago but I am happy with the growth the springs is getting.

[TCHP]

Perspective creates our reality, typically, and people will tend grow into or out of what they see as that reality. Many move here because we offer a number of decent sized city amenities but we still feel like a much smaller place than our population indicates.

With that said, El Paso County is the typically the first or second most populous in the state, swapping spots with Denver County every so often. Obviously Cos is no where near as dense as Denver as El Paso County encompasses over two thousand square miles compared to Denver's 155 sq miles. As such, our political leaders have tended to foster a small town or maybe small city mentality in many aspects of how they have managed growth and development. This may have been due to the fact that city council elected the Mayor up until the the late 1970s. It wasn't until Robert Isaac was elected by popular vote that choosing this role was given to the general populace. As such, the council tended to push candidates that would promote their agendas. Since then, we have only had three mayors who worked with the arrangement of council and City Manager and only two since the conversion to a strong mayor format. In this regard, Cos is only starting to really stretch its legs with political positions and people who can advance the city away from its small town mentality. I tend to think there is still a lot on the table of what we can do for the future if we can get leaders in place with visions that can inspire and align the population to truly make this a great place. The flip side of that is we could also elect relative isolationists who don't want to promote or grow much of anything. Time will tell which way we lean.

[smdensbcs]

Originally Posted by MountainEarth

They didn't ever see that happening in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, or Boulder (or the Bay Area where I grew up) either. And yet there they are.

Indeed. However there are certain "similarities" shared by Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Boulder, and the Bay Area which are decidedly NOT shared by Colorado Springs which have tended to draw HIGHLY wealthy HIGHLY creative/skilled wealth creator types. In my line of work I see a handful of very wealthy folks move to Colorado Springs (typically because a family member already lives here and they want to be near their grandkids). But this is not Montecito where Oprah visits once and decides to buy a $20 million estate on a whim. In recent decades (let's say since roughly the 1960's) the (ahem) "changing demographics" of Colorado Springs has basically destroyed what was once an honest-to-goodness thriving world-class arts and culture scene back in the first half of the 20th century, leaving a barely-there shell of arts/culture that looks more like a city one-third it's population. Also, unlike the cities described above, Colorado Springs and El Paso County has the ability and inclination to add hundreds of thousands of new houses. Banning Lewis Ranch alone could add 50-80K new houses in the next few decades according to a speech I just heard the mayor give. That to me is not indicative of a city on the verge of exploding real estate values, other than the normal slow growth based on run of the mill inflation. Unless something drastic happens, military retirees and evangelical organizations will continue to gather here in disproportionate numbers, which makes it a nice law and order anti-tax anti-services type place, pretty much exactly the opposite tone of the relative handful of places that have experienced exponential price increases. Colorado Springs for all it has going for it is just simply not THAT place hipsters and billionaires and millennial tech-mavens will covet and flock to. I'll believe it when I see it.

[DrDog]

The population of our countries continues to grow, and as someone once said they don’t make any more real estate, so it’s gonna get more crowded. Learn to live with it.

[orngkat]

I think you have to consider where educated, young people will choose to live and work in the near future. I'm not sure this is the place as things are now as it lacks the creative energy of aforementioned cities. Not to say it can't reinvent itself but hard to imagine as it is now.

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by orngkat

I think you have to consider where educated, young people will choose to live and work in the near future. I'm not sure this is the place as things are now as it lacks the creative energy of aforementioned cities. Not to say it can't reinvent itself but hard to imagine as it is now.

This is actually the one consistent thing about Cos through its history. It has always reinvented its self. It started as a refined, genteel outpost on the frontier. It became a milling and processing center. It was a center for arts and entertainment. It was a technology manufacturing hub. It still is a military aerospace and defense region. It is still a somewhat evangelical centered area, although their retoric has quieted some of late. Currently cyber security is lurking in the background and the city keeps pushing the Olympic moniker.

Lifestyle attributes such as active, outdoorsy, tech availability (without DOD requirements), arts,a nd decent infrastructure can change that. In the past, it has typically been benevolent, well heeled individuals who have pushed the change such as Palmer, Penrose, Stratton. Now it will need to be a more collaborative effort with a majority of us. Will we have the will to create the change or will we just sit around complaining about the interstate?