18
votes
Colorado's Tildos - How-does it suit you?
(please read as "colorados tildohs, how-dooose it suit you?")
Things like
- Do you feel concerned about living there long term?
- Does the water situation bother you?
- Did you move there as an adult, or were you raised there? How does it compare to other places, in your view?
I have a bit of a fascination with it and have considered moving, but it's a big change from where I currently live.
I grew up there but have since moved away, my parents live in the Denver area and I visit often.
The water situation is not great but ultimately is better than some of the other western states; it wouldn't be a primary negative factor for moving there. The real estate market is a nuthouse, though. My parents bought their house for around 100k in 89 and it is currently somewhere in the 600s. Rentals are crazy, buying is crazy.
It's a wonderful, beautiful, unique place with a great outdoor culture, generally good people and a decent food scene. It can feel somewhat isolated from other cities, since there's really nothing around the metro area for a long way. I've considered moving back every once in a while, and the housing market is what usually stops that line of thought when it happens. If that weren't an issue, I'd give it serious consideration because I love that state.
I’m from Colorado but very far away from Denver which most people seem to be speaking of. Not sure where you would be planning on living but I recommend staying on the Denver side of the state.
I lived near the Utah border. Can’t speak on the water situation, but the terrain is desert over there and it was pretty dry.
It was super conservative when I was there, but the population has risen significantly and when I go back I do see some effort to be more inclusive, but I also see even more vocal trump fans with signs plastered everywhere. This was my least favorite part about living there, and excluding well known liberal cities (Boulder, Denver), you will find that a lot of small Colorado towns give this vibe. Lotssssss of meth and tweakers running around as well. Despite that, most people are pretty social even if they have different values.
A lot of things are very far apart, so everyone uses cars. But if you don’t mind walking distance or biking my city had very wide streets with great sidewalks and bike lanes. The road planning is fantastic, everything has bountiful parking.
Rent is stupid crazy now, but other than that for other cost of living things it feels affordable (food, gas, thrift stores, etc).
The outdoors part is fantastic- lots of well maintained trails, places to fish/boat, hunt, camp whatever. Nightlife on the other hand is pretty bad. Most people I know still prefer house parties and it feels like the whole town shows up when you go to one.
I would never move back in all honesty. But like I said, this is the other side of the state and most people aren’t talking about this area when describing Colorado.
Born and raised here, my kids now exist here too and all my family are here, so I'm not going anywhere.
Water does concern me, but I'm hoping we'll get closer and closer to better water use and management. This year, I was abiding strictly by the watering restrictions, which was disappointing for my lawn, but ultimately I want to get rid of it anyway and have more xeriscaping.
The only place I can really compare it to is New Mexico, because we vacation there semi frequently. I've really only spent time in Santa Fe, but one of the things I like about the areas I've visited is that it feels like Colorado when Colorado was far less populated. These days traffic sucks, real estate sucks and everything is generally crowded.
That said, the one benefit is there's lots going on and interesting food and people. My oldest kid attends a Korean Taekwondo class, we have lots of Korean food and people around us. We have a pretty large variety of different African food around us, with a large African and Middle Eastern population. So there's lots of different people and things my kids get exposed to which I'm very appreciative of.
What fascinates you about it?
I guess I imagine that it's a place to live healthily with people whose interests are less concerned about image and more concerned about health and nature? I think of it as mountainous and sunny. When I visited, an acquaintance brought me along on their trip and their friends were chilled out and interesting. Some parts of where I visited were walkable (Denver), there was good food (some super excellent). It does seem to have jobs in my industry (software). On paper, it seems to be a good balance of things, down to the purple state-iness. It feels like a nice place to live if international travel isn't a major focus (in contrast, I know a handful of couples who have each attended 3+ international weddings this year-- which I find a bit nuts).
At the same time, I know things are usually not what they appear. Groups of people generally have some sort of competition (is there some sort of hiking 'tech wear' mountain biking cliquishness?). I imagined a veg garden in my future, but Colorado has water restrictions / water rights drama / wildfires / etc. Then there's weird Flock stuff (though I suppose that's everywhere now).
Yes and no. There's lots of health conscious people, but it's a mix, as anywhere.
And people are very concerned about image, as anywhere else as well, it's just different. You have the people that project a crunchy granola image of themselves but work a standard corporate job and live that standard corporate life in a million dollar house. And you have your standard yuppies, etc. People are people and you'll meet all kinds; it's not necessarily anything special here.
Walkability is so-so, I'd say. If you live downtown, yeah, but rents there are unaffordable anymore. When I was in my 20's, my girlfriend and I had an apartment we split the rent on for $750 a month. That same place is likely $1600+ these days. The town I grew up in next to Boulder wasn't walkable, still isn't. Boulder itself isn't terribly walkable (bikable, I'd suppose) and the city I live in now (right on the edge of Denver) is not at all walkable.
There are definitely jobs in software. My Dad has been a Software Engineer my entire life and though he's been laid off numerous times through the 80's, 90's, 00's, etc, he's always found a new job. Though, I think a lot of those jobs (I'm looking as well, but I'm a Sys Admin), depending on how close to Denver you are, are in Defense Contractors.
International travel isn't bad, honestly. Not that I do a whole lot of it, but DIA is an International Airport and you can take direct flights to Europe and elsewhere. A couple of years ago my wife and I flew directly from Denver to London.
I like to bike, but I'm not a biker. I don't wear the gear or anything. But I find most bikers exceptionally obnoxious and hoity-toity. Last bikers I talked to at my wife's high school reunion two years ago were some of the most tedious people I've ever met. But again, that all depends, I've known plenty of bikers who were/are perfectly normal people, so again, people are people.
Gardens are definitely a thing. I had one this year, but it never really took off and watering it wasn't really an issue, because it doesn't use as much as a lawn with sprinklers, if you're using something like a watering system with drip hoses. But the climate definitely is particular as far as things you can grow. But again, you're going to need a place with space and a yard and real estate isn't cheap. My neighbors next to me are three guys that own a house together, they're all software engineers and had to pool their resources to buy one house.
I'm not trying to shit on your dreams, just want to be realistic. Colorado is a cool place and I never intend to leave it, but it's a place like any other, in my experience. Wherever you go, there you are.
Edit: I will say, we do have good choices for food, as I mentioned in my prior post. But it's also not everywhere. Friends that live in suburbs have standard bland choices; my parents are constantly complaining that there's nothing to eat in their suburb; but where I'm at, my wife and I rode our bikes to an Eritrean Restaurant the other week, which is next to a new Korean Restaurant. Next to my neighborhood is an Arabic market, along with an H-Mart, as well as Pho, Korean Donuts/Ice Cream, Brazilian food, dim sum, Yemeni food, etc, etc. I could go on, but there's so many options here. Honestly, we have better choices here than in downtown Denver, honestly. Lots of little holes in the wall here, versus all upscale type stuff in Denver proper.
The international grocery stores (H-Mart included) are the bomb!
Moved here as an adult.
Better in nearly every way from Texas.
Am a water rights nerd, am not overly concerned with it.
Only thing I'm not a fan of so far is it being really goddamn white up here. Went from Texas that is 40% Hispanic, 40% White, 12% Black, 5% Asian, etc to 65% White, 23% Hispanic, 4% Black, 4% Asian, etc. in Colorado and all that comes with that.
This state is the largest and most left of the mountain states. While I don't agree with everything our legislature is doing, they're doing more for the common working man than our neighbors.
It's something I think about. The Colorado River Compact is in flux now. I live near the Upper Colorado headwaters. The Front Range cities and lower basin states do seem hell-bent on stealing as much water from here as possible. Colorado is the headwaters for a large portion of the western US, so we have a lot of power in water negotiations. If we're truly talking survival I think I'll walk to the Mighty Colorado and take what I need, regardless of what the water compact says we're allowed haha.
As an adult.
I've lived in rural areas my whole life. There aren't many places where you can live rural and still have culture, and frankly it's thanks to the money the ski resorts bring. I've thought about moving back, told myself that there are outdoorsy places in Northern Minnesota or the U-P or Appalachia, but then I go visit and it's just not the same.
With that said, I don't go east of the Eisenhower Tunnel more than once or twice a year. Colorado is like four states in one. From east to west, you have the farming communities on the great planes of eastern Colorado, the big cities east of the front range, the mountain towns in the high rockies, and the oil and gas cities of the western slope. It kind of depends which you're asking about.
It's home and I still love it. Grew up here, left a few years for college and came back.
Something that really stuck out to me coming back was how accessible outdoor recreation is in so much of the Denver metro area. It feels like there are state parks, city parks, and open space for walking/running/biking everywhere. And at least for me, there's always been at least one space in relatively close walking distance which has been really nice.
I feel like there's a lot of interesting stuff to do for lots of different people. The outdoor recreation scene is big, but there's lots of other stuff too. Like I know there's a few board game cafes around that I always think would be fun to checkout and just don't get around to. It's easy to find really good food, especially if you head into Denver.
Concerned about living here long term? Not really, the population is definitely growing fast and the traffic can get bad, but I think we're figuring out how to manage the growth well enough.
The water situation? Uh, maybe? Depends on what you mean. Like, am I concerned we're going to run out of water? I suppose it nags at me a bit. But we're at the very start of the water for the rest of the country, so even in a bad drought we still get first dibs on precipitation. That said, water politics are a whole other beast and I definitely see some pretty nasty fighting emerging if we continue to have dryer seasons.
Honestly I'm more concerned about a bad wild fire season caused by low precipitation than I am about low precipitation itself. Mostly just because the bad wildfires we've had have been REALLY bad.
I've basically been here my whole life but as I mentioned have spent a fair amount of time out of state. Honestly I was always really glad to come back and I look forward to staying here. There are other places I'd consider moving, but it would take a big life event to catalyze that change. It wouldn't be something I'd necessarily seek out as a first choice.
I went to college in Colorado. Even then I felt bad about living in a (high) desert that really isn't made for mass human populations, but it felt okay because I was essentially an invited, temporary visitor. I really hate how many people live there and are moving there, and the effects on the ecosystem—hundreds, if not over a thousand, ecosystems destroyed to store up water for Colorado's humans. But I'll admit that I could be quite uninformed and just going with the standard uninformed environmentalist narrative. Perhaps there's some key piece of information that I'm missing.
It was a nice place to live and I wouldn't mind living there again (other than the aforementioned, rather major issues). But the place where I went to school certainly seemed to be the most overrated place I've ever lived.