Durango, CO (Cortez, Ouray, Dove Creek: buying a home, purchase, utilities)

[kraus020237]

I happened to run across the Durango thread and gotta get my dos centavos in. I lived there 91 to 94 and had been visiting for several years before that. To me there were 4 distinct and somewhat seperate populations: skiers (a minority), ranchers (they really do have horses there), college students (winter), and real estate people (just kidding). I actually forgot the 4th one but somebody will fill it in. It might have changed since then but attitudes about Californians and Texans apparently haven't and it's that way in a lot of mountain resorts in Colorado and in some they make up the high percentage of 2nd home owners who live there only part time (that might be the 4th group). I'm not a republican but I don't think that would have been much of a problem when I was there. Durango was becoming more of a summer destination than winter but it's a great place all seasons especially for skiing, hiking, mountain biking and fabulous scenery. I think it would be worth your while to spend a little time there before you make your decision and I recommend looking around in every direction outside of town.

[swcolorado]

First post but thought I would chime in.

I've been in Durango for 40 yrs so I guess that puts me close to "local" status. Durango is a great town as long as you want to be like everyone else. For a bunch of so called "individualistic" people, I have never seen such a bunch of followers. Ride your bike in traffic with your spandex? You'll be like everyone else. Drive a small 4WD plastered with bumper stickers. You'll be like everyone elese. Express your opinions loudly and often but if someone disagrees with you call them "intolerant"? You'll fit right in.

I have seen our town go from a welcoming, nice community to one that is closed and full of itself. There are a few of us old timers that get together and just complain about what this town has become. Trustafarians with their attitudes and money and Teva sandals have just about ruined this perfectly good place. Liberals that want to cram their agenda down our throats and then complain that we are so intolerant and mean spirited when it's actually the other way around. I have had my car keyed and damaged every election year whether I had a Bush 41, Bush 43 or McCain sticker on it. When John McCain was here last fall, I wore my McCain/Palin shirt downtown and actually had a lady come out her shop and tell me that she "hoped that I burned in hell". I smiled and said "thank you". If you want a yoga shop or a bike shop or river sandals, this is the place for you. If you want a nice group of people that are welcoming to everyone, even if they think different from them, pick someplace else.

I always thought I would die here and be buried in Greenmount Cemetary with the rest of my kin but I am planning my escape from this intolerant group of people that have taken over my town!

I'm sure I'll be bashed for this opinion but I have the right to say what I want about the place I was raised in!

[jazzlover]

swcolorado,

You sound like the number of Durango native friends of mine that got fed up with what their home town became and moved elsewhere--some of them 4th generation Durango natives.

Some posters on this forum are the same intolerant types you describe. The deride long-time Coloradans like us for complaining about what the state has become.

40 or 50 years ago, rural Colorado incomes stunk, but the mountains were uncrowded and largely unspoiled, housing was affordable, living costs were cheap, taxes were low, and communities were family-oriented and close-knit. Today, incomes still stink, but the mountains are getting overcrowded and overdeveloped, housing is nearly unaffordable on local incomes, living costs are expensive, taxes are getting higher all the time, and everybody in town is from somewhere else and doesn't give a crap about the natural or social history of the place. And then those Colorado wannabes wonder why the long-timers are p***ed off about all the growth and change.

[CosmicWizard]

I may not know exacly WHY the long-timers are p***ed off about all the growth and change, but I'd venture a guess that the root cause is that the politicians you voted for sold you down the drain. This betrayal naturally leaves you with a sense of powerlessness and frustration so you attempt to mitigate your frustration by blaming those ( newcomers ) who temporaily have even less power. But you fail to realize that this is loosely akin to busting pot smokers instead of going after the dealers. Not paying attention to the dealers ( politicians ), they just keep getting more and more power, while the pot smokers keep growing in number despite your efforts to discourage them from smoking pot.

[JTinTx]

Though we currently live in Texas, three generations of my family were born in Colorado and I have about a dozen relatives living there, all natives. I have traveled there annually since I was a child in the 1950s and I can remember the way the mountains used to be. My father and uncle took us on camping and fishing trips from an early age and instilled in us the highest appreciation and respect for the mountains and outdoors. We always try to leave the places we visit a little better than we found them. Colorado has the best mountains in the country – no other state even comes close. I wish I could say the same of the people living there.

I have traveled to all 50 states and Colorado people, in general, are the rudest, most presumptuous, intolerant and self-righteous people I have ever encountered anywhere. I have been yelled at, honked at, had obscene gestures flashed at me, had my car scratched and damaged and was nearly run off the road once for nothing more than having Texas license plates on my car. I have witnessed this childish behavior not only in the mountain resort areas but also in the larger cities of the Front Range. Colorado should adopt the slogan “Best Mountains – Worst People.”

To be fair, I have also met many wonderful, warm, caring and friendly folks there and count many of my Colorado friends as part of our extended family. Having witnessed first hand the growth in the mountains and the change this has brought, I can understand the resentment towards this growth and the newcomers who act rudely and don’t appreciate local culture and history. I feel the same way about the gaudy, obscenely large palaces some people build as their vacation homes.

These problems are not unique to the mountains or Colorado though. Many parts of the country have experienced rapid growth over the past few decades and this growth has changed the character of these areas. Over the past 40+ years I have seen Austin change from a laid-back college town of barely 200k people to a sprawling metropolis of 1.5 million. People here are still friendly to non-natives though and newcomers are welcomed and treated with respect. We may not like the growth and the changes it has brought, but we realize that being angry and bitter over it only makes life miserable for everyone.

So to those of you who are p***ed off over growth and people moving to your paradise, I say GROW UP! If you live in a beautiful and desirable part of our country more people are going to be moving there. Nothing you can do will stop this. Treating newcomers with disrespect only makes things worse. Get involved in your local and state government. Be an advocate for responsible and sustainable growth and hold your elected officials accountable. This beats going through life being angry and bitter about things you have little control over.

[Cherished]

[FONT=Verdana]Hello Everyone,[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]I am new here on this site. Is the discussion of Durango completed? because my husband and I are thinking of moving to your area with our children. I note that I am on Page 8 of your discussion and the last posting was August 28, 2009. It is almost October now. Maybe I should look at another Colorado section but I wanted to be part of the Durango "back and forth." I will check back in a few days to see if anyone is still here. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]I read all the messages going back to 2006. Wow, what do you all think of the changes that have happened all over the USA due to the recession? How is it in Durango? [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Wouldn't it be great if people didn't make their money through real estate speculation? I know, I know... I just wish that people were more satisfied and houses were more like a savings bank that yielded your money back plus a small bit of interest. I wish that the rich bought paintings and commissioned music instead of investing in real estate unless they were humanitarians and built houses for the middle class and did not make a profit. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]I am living in the Twin Cities of MN... and we live in an apt on a street that has quite a few apartments and single family homes, Grand Ave. We cannot afford any of the houses in this neighborhood or in most of the tree-lined neighborhoods of the whole of St Paul. People who bought their homes 25-35 years ago will come out to say "hi" when our family walks by... MN people are truly friendly for the most part. They will tell us what a wonderful neighborhood theirs is and how it would be a great place for us to raise our child. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]I do not think that they are thinking it through because the houses in their neighborhood cost 425 to 900 thousand today... even with the economic downturn. We could never afford such a mortgage....never. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]When I bought a tent back in the 1980's, I bought a green tent so that when I went camping and someone walked by or stood on a mountain, I would not spoil their view as much as if I had a bright orange or red tent.... This is just an example I am giving you so you will know what I wish. I want to move to the Durango area and find a stick-house or straw-bail house that has passive solar and some solar panels or a windmill, etc. I want to be a good stewart of where I live and practice whatever I need to so this truly happens. If I live near the forest, I would hope that I could management my little bit of property so that it would have a low impact on the land. My hope is that my house would be a friendly home and that I would see people begin to walk by the door for hikes and bird watching instead of talking on their cell or sitting all day at a computer. Then when I die, I would hope that my child would either live in the house or give it to someone for just about what it cost our family so that we would truly live out what we believe. Am I crazy? [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]My child was born in Albquerque. My husband was born in rural Ohio. I hate to tell you where I was born.... Anyways, everywhere I have lived including England, France, New Zealand, Oregon and Minnesota... have met with the same problems of many people and not the right type of land and housing management. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]There are some creative ways to build so that people share open space and have different sizes of living space for the size of their family and their realistic needs. They have found that if the neighborhood streets are narrower, but there is an open green for children to play and fields for sports and older people to walk and sit, that everyone doesn't need a yard in front or in back... everyone doesn't need sooo many things. Community is what we truly seek whether we know this or not. This is coming from someone who is quite happy being very reclusive because I am a writer of sorts... or rather I should say, a reader... most of the time. I enjoy remote areas. But do I need to live full-time in the outback? Why not just hike outside a few times a month rather than carve the land up. In some African villages, the people have good growth planning for their families and this leaves the open land for practical things like survival. Well, I have best stop writing and get to bed. We are visiting Duluth tomorrow.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]My point is the world is being eaten up as if it were a good tasting cookie... soon there will out of necessity need to be "planning." I do not think the world can afford the way the rich continue to live. I am someone who did volunteer work and lived on a stipends for many years and now lecture myself about what I truly need and what is just my exposure to our culture of consumption. I have been a registered Green, have voted Democrat and think of myself as an Independent. I am conservative in my desire to hold onto community townhalls and the need to really listen to one another and respect where he/she is coming from in their thinking and their outlook. Anyone new on this thread?[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]If there is anyone out there to write to me, please do. Thanks.[/FONT]

[brightdoglover]

Cherished,
I notice you posted on all three Durango discussions.
(Disclaimer- I live in Massachusetts, vacation in Colorado almost every year, bought and sold little properties in Ridgway twice for a day dream, and visited Durango in 2007 and laid to rest my thought of moving there.
I could afford a house outside Durango-not easily, but could, by selling here. There was exactly one job in town for me, short pay, and a new service- could easily disappear, taking my one job-for-hundreds-of-miles with it into the air.
I found Durango itself to be a workable size for me, with a greenway biking trail along the pretty river. Housing in town itself was ridiculous, and I think it still is, the few times I've checked. My daydream was of living in a walkable downtown, and not in a condo (I have multiple dogs).
I don't know of any sustainable planned communities there (sounds like that is what you were thinking of, with the communal green?).
Downtown was overrun with blond young hiker-biking types, and oh, it was the annual National Harley Davidson Run- tens of thousands of Harley bikers everywhere you went, and I mean within a 50-mile radius, so it was probably pretty hard to get a realistic feel for the town on Labor Day weekend!
The downtown had a distinct (to me) New Agey-California feel. The place is loaded with massage therapists and alternative crystal healers and stuff. Not my speed.
But the major issue is work. Rather, the lack thereof. If you don't have a clear and workable plan for a good income, it sure doesn't seem the place to go to.
I don't ski, so didn't care to be anywhere near or costing like a ski area does. I stayed at Vallecito Lake, some 30 miles north, past Bayfield. Bayfield seemed like the quintessential family neighborhood, didn't see any houses big enough to be an office building, and the lake area is beautiful. One two-lane road dead-ending around the lake, and you could see quite easily the severe damage from the huge wildfires in 2002. I went horseback riding up into the mountains and all you could see for a lot of hills and mountain were burned trees. The road had many signs warning that the watershed was lost to the fire, and that any running water or rain run-off could present a danger to a careless driver. Fire is still a huge risk there.
But work. Income is the issue, really.
I will follow these discussions to see what thoughts others might have, especially residents.

[kalimara]

What about people who wish to move to Colorado, not just Durango or to other 'rural' areas in less populated states, simply because they want to have a different manner of living? Not every out-of-stater builds McMansions and turns formerly real small town downtowns into 'new agey-Caliornia' type tourist destinations. Some people just want to live their lives and choose to do so in a place they find pleasing, a place that may or may not be the state/city they themselves grew up in. I find the concept of people only being allowed to remain in the city/state they were raised in to be horribly antiquated. What is this, 12th century Europe replete with feudal hierarchies and peasantry residency requirements? No one has the right to live in a place and once their family is settled there, close the gate behind them. Now am I all for responsible growth and well-thought out research prior to moving to any new place. Responsible people should understand and fully embrace the characteristics of the places they move to-Colorado is not California because IT'S COLORADO, NOT CALIFORNIA. Very simple. Newcomers should know as much as possible about the history and community of their new homes before they move, but I understand that this isn't always the case for everyone. That doesn't mean they're bad people, at the very worst it simply means they're uniformed people, which, while unfortunate for them, is not a crime. Nor should they be reviled for it

I was just surprised by the responses I saw while reading this board. If you consider a place beautiful then why shouldn't others feel the same way? They cannot help it that they are not 'natives' to that area, they have no control over that, they cannot help where they were born or where they were raised and considering them to be 'outsiders'-in a very negative, not literal, sense of the word-for those reasons reeks of the worst kind of intolerance in my opinion.

[brightdoglover]

I have felt the same way, reading statements like "Where I go fishing, I used to be alone, now I see other cars." Well, those other people want to fish there, too. I appreciate that over-sized houses and overpriced froufrou skews an area, but not everyone that moves is able/interested in that. And did anyone hold a gun to local people's heads to push them into construction work?
If I sold my East Coast house and moved inland, I'd likely have more money than the average person there to buy a house. I wouldn't likely move somewhere more expensive than my current place. It's only common sense that if someone wants to move, they consider moving somewhere with lower housing costs than where they are moving from. I imagine Colorado-born people are not different.
There is growth everywhere. The U.S. population moved from 200 million to 300 million well within my lifetime. People do not spread nicely over the "empty" areas. People with money will always have choices that people with less money don't have.
I didn't say I like it, but I do get weary of postings that seem to say that anything goes as long as one was born in the state borders, that this kind of difficulty/sprawl is unique to Colorado (and people moving from other states) and that people should stick with whatever beauty or lack thereof where they are born.
Young people have always left rural areas/home for change and opportunity. It's not unique to the current times or Colorado.

[CosmicWizard]

Hey brightdoglover....Myself, Mike, Katiana, and many others have posted similar sentiment many times on numerous Colorado threads. But thanks for the reminder anyway. It cannot be said too often, because a handful of native Coloradans who believe everyone born elsewhere should bend to their will, need to be reminded as often as possible. Like you say, it doesn't mean that we like the McMansions and other idiotic aspects of growth, but we know that whining and complaining only causes personal frustration, bitterness, and unhapiines, while doing absolutely nothing to change the situation for the better. Thanks again!