Guy raised in Denver says it is "getting lame" (to move, places)

[dnvrsoul]

Originally Posted by jweb29

Westword is written by a bunch of stoner millennials. I don't take many articles they right seriously, being a stoner millennial. "LOCALS ONLY" oh please what are we, lords of denvertown?

"This is me waving the white flag. Transplants, you win. I will now be part of the problem, and San Franciscans can ***** about me."

There it is. everyone moves. he needs to grow up. never left his home state and he's 32? what a loser. screw him. (excuse my abrasiveness)

So he is a loser because he never moved? I know a lot of people that still live in the same state they were born in.....

If that makes someone a loser..well you are very closed minded.

Once a city became the it city...well I am always suspect ...if you think you are cool because you live in the it city..you need to grow up

[Mach50]

The irony is that he is now yet another boring loser to the people in SF.

I found the article to be written by someone with a mindset of a high schooler.

[NinjaHitsAWall]

Originally Posted by JrzDefector

Pffft. I was just back on the east coast for 10 days. Differences I observed:

-Almost NO hipsters. It's like the pollution is too much for them in Jersey or something. I was in Manhattan for a day and didn't spot any that I recall.
....
All of that said, I was glad to get back to Denver, where my dogs are welcome in a lot more places, I can see the mountains without even trying, I can get edibles for my headaches (only thing that works) and I own a ridiculously large house for a single woman but pay minimal property taxes compared to Jersey. Oh and my friends - I really missed them too

The part of the east coast I moved from arguably has more hipsters...

Originally Posted by MN_Ski

You know what, i'm like 90% sure this is just a troll article to get views to West Word. Actually make it 100%.

They know these types of articles rile people up. Look at how many people read it on this board who would have probably never clicked on West Word.

Good on them I guess. It also gives me a few good ideas to make a little money

Haha I like a lot of what they put out. I hear similar sentiments to that article IRL though.

What's funny is that I think a lot of "natives" don't distinguish native from non-native with great accuracy, unless they notice an accent. I get asked by like 9/10 new people I meet if I'm "from here". One of my friends who claimed not to get asked that a lot because of an obvious midwestern accent, got asked the other week "are you from Fort Collins?" just because it came up in conversation.

Originally Posted by elliotty

people will wear uggs and a hoodie to a play or symphony.

I love not having to constantly care about how I dress.

[ryanek9freak]

I hate to break it to this guy, but Denver, nor all of Colorado for that matter, was ever as cool as he seems to think it is. I was born here, and I've lived here most of my 39 years, save for a brief hiatus in Nevada and Ohio (soon to be 40). It's just ok. But it is my home, so I'll stay.

[JonathanLB]

Originally Posted by sheerbliss

This sounds just like an episode of Portlandia.

As a Portland native, I agree. I'm not sure if Portland "got lame" or I just grew up and it was always lame, but complaining about Denver seems pretty hilarious to me. I have a good friend moving to Denver most likely, his whole family lives there, and it seems like an awesome city to me. We are moving to Las Vegas, which is very "me" (no income taxes, lots of sunshine / heat, endless entertainment, 24/7 culture for night owls, etc.), but Denver would be high on my list of "good cities." You have great breweries, you have like 300 days of sunshine, you have reasonable taxation, nice quality of life, good sports atmosphere, from what everyone says friendly people, what's not to like? Maybe this dude "got lame," but in my estimation from afar Denver has continued to become a better and better city, to the point where tons of people I know talk about moving there and a few have.

[Masterful_Man]

Denver is a damn fine city if I might say so myself.
I have visited or lived in many of the major metro areas of the U.S., and Denver easily scores a place in the top 10.
Denver today is the best it has ever been in terms of food, activities, and overall quality of life.

Sometimes people simply get bored living in the same town and need a change.

[Count David]

Originally Posted by JonathanLB

As a Portland native, I agree. I'm not sure if Portland "got lame" or I just grew up and it was always lame, but complaining about Denver seems pretty hilarious to me. I have a good friend moving to Denver most likely, his whole family lives there, and it seems like an awesome city to me. We are moving to Las Vegas, which is very "me" (no income taxes, lots of sunshine / heat, endless entertainment, 24/7 culture for night owls, etc.), but Denver would be high on my list of "good cities." You have great breweries, you have like 300 days of sunshine, you have reasonable taxation, nice quality of life, good sports atmosphere, from what everyone says friendly people, what's not to like? Maybe this dude "got lame," but in my estimation from afar Denver has continued to become a better and better city, to the point where tons of people I know talk about moving there and a few have.

There are two sides to the story.

The guy who wrote this "article" is a native. There is a vocal subset of natives that has this idea that "things were better before all of these darned transplants arrived".

News flash: there have been transplants here all along.

Those natives tend to believe that Denver had its own unique culture before they all arrived, and that the transplants have ruined it for them, or taken it away from them (and in some ways, they aren't wrong). It was much easier to see Denver "back then" when Denver wasn't yet on the radar. But it wasn't really that unique, it's just about as middle of the road as you can get when you're already in the middle of the road. The culture is really just kind of bland/American/suburban/middle-class, and even their accents/behaviors are kind of monotone, much like the city itself, there's not much "there" there, even though it's pretty (in parts), looks great on paper, has tons to do, etc; there really just wasn't/isn't much THAT novel about anything or any group of people here.

On the other side of the coin, and what is attracting everybody here is all of the things you described. Add a progressive outlook, growth, etc., and it's no wonder what is happening here is happening.

tl;dr, some natives be mad that dudes with Blackmon beards can afford new loft apartments and microbrews.

[N610DL]

Originally Posted by Count David

There are two sides to the story.

The guy who wrote this "article" is a native. There is a vocal subset of natives that has this idea that "things were better before all of these darned transplants arrived".

News flash: there have been transplants here all along.

Those natives tend to believe that Denver had its own unique culture before they all arrived, and that the transplants have ruined it for them, or taken it away from them (and in some ways, they aren't wrong). It was much easier to see Denver "back then" when Denver wasn't yet on the radar. But it wasn't really that unique, it's just about as middle of the road as you can get when you're already in the middle of the road. The culture is really just kind of bland/American/suburban/middle-class, and even their accents/behaviors are kind of monotone, much like the city itself, there's not much "there" there, even though it's pretty (in parts), looks great on paper, has tons to do, etc; there really just wasn't/isn't much THAT novel about anything or any group of people here.

I agree with this. I would always ask people who claimed to be CO "Natives" and their parents were always from somewhere else EG: Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, The Dakota's etc. It's the same deal with CA (L.A.) most Parents / Grandparents migrated from the Midwest or Northeast. Yet you don't see the backlash towards new transplants out here like in CO. In fact many want to make you feel pretty welcomed so you don't leave to places sucking up people from Los Angeles like Phoenix or Austin.

[Count David]

Originally Posted by N610DL

I agree with this. I would always ask people who claimed to be CO "Natives" and their parents were always from somewhere else EG: Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, The Dakota's etc. It's the same deal with CA (L.A.) most Parents / Grandparents migrated from the Midwest or Northeast. Yet you don't see the backlash towards new transplants out here like in CO. In fact many want to make you feel pretty welcomed so you don't leave to places sucking up people from Los Angeles like Phoenix or Austin.

I was at a bar with some friends today and we got on this topic, as I/my family just "celebrated" 12 years in CO yesterday. One of my friends is from Upstate NY, and he told me that when he came out for his scouting trip to CO with his family (c.2014), he was in some shop and the guy in the shop told him about 100 different reasons why he and his family shouldn't move to CO from NY. My friend all but told the guy that anything he said wasn't going to talk him out of moving here.

I related a different story from our scouting trip back in 2006. We spent a week touring both Denver and Colorado Springs, and nobody seemed to have any qualms about us wanting to move here FROM CA . In fact, on that trip I remember our tour guide at the state capitol telling us she did the same thing "xx years ago" from "xx Midwest/Northeastern state" and settled in Westminster when she and her husband got here and lived happily ever after.

I was born/raised in Southern CA, and my reaction to domestic transplants was mostly "why?" (as I was likely wanderlusty for the places they came from), and "cool, enjoy suffering with the rest of us", and IMO that's the "at worst" reaction. I've never heard the "don't move here" rhetoric in Southern CA; but it's not unique to Denver, as other cities in its situation suffer from it as well (Portland, Boise, and oddly enough now Spokane).

Why can't we be more like Phoenix in this regard? That place is welcoming as heck.

What I like most about Denver transplants? That most of them don't care that their presence is making others mad.

Originally Posted by N610DL

It's the same deal with CA (L.A.) most Parents / Grandparents migrated from the

Mexico. The answer to this is Mexico.

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

Meh. It's sour grapes. There's a lot of that amongst the long-timers. They tend to forget (or are too young to remember) that large swaths of Denver were total s**tholes in the late 80s/early 90s. I think Denver's gotten better. I'd rather live here than a backwater like Wyoming, which has changed very little over the last 50 years, and is as good as screwed when their energy reserves dry up.

This post is too funny, I long to move back to Laramie one day (went to school there 35 years ago) - the possibility that WY might be "a backwater that hasn't changed in 50 years" makes it that much more appealing to me. When fossil fuels "dry up" (or are replaced by green energy, a real possibility), WY will still have ranching, tourism, great people and with any luck, data centers and potentially be a huge source of wind energy to help keep Denver's lights on. To be in an extreme outer suburb of Denver (Fort Collins, really) would be wonderful in my opinion. I'm a little hesitant due to the long winters, but the beautiful summers may be enough, who knows. Denver may have grown a little too much and a little too fast, but the specific complaints from the linked article do indeed sound like a parody, the writer needs to get a "The End is Near" sign and stand on top of Mt. Elbert, he'd be taken more seriously.