Re:Three cities in Colorado in top ten leading destinations ...
by bproven on Thursday October 12, 2017 @01:12PM
(#15459514)
I lived there for 10 years - its one of my favorite places to live, but there are a few things that can be perceived as negatives:
- snow/cold (however its the mildest you will find for a place that gets snow). But snow is snow if you don't like it
-if you are from the coasts (say CA) you may not dig the politics - mainly b/c its not a one sided echo chamber like I find CA to be. I found it to be a decent mix of both major parties. Some may not like this, but personally I found it refreshing.
- no oceans - land locked
- fairly isolated... besides Denver there are not a lot of large cities around to easily travel to. But the counterpoint to this is that DIA is a major airport with lots of flight options.
- public transportation is not really great - you will need a car, especially in the winter. But it is better than many major US cities (US public transportation is pretty awful in general anyway). This is one area I really wish CO would do a bit of forward thinking on building this out quickly now before it becomes CA bay area/LA. It is disconcerting considering that it would be fairly easy to accomplish since most of the populous cities in CO are located in a straight line North/South along the mountain range. Ideal for a high speed train with east/west light rail into the city cores. But, I digress... :)
- depending on the city/area you decide to settle in, pay is not quite where it needs to be to support the quickly rising housing costs. I visit probably 1-2x per year and it is amazing the amount of growth and population surge that has occurred in the past few years. Denver is experiencing a huge boom right now and housing is not keeping up. Outside of Denver or Boulder proper I found salaries to be pretty low compared to cost of living. For instance, I lived in one of the cities mentioned in the article (Fort Collins). Although IMO a great city to live, the IT job market is horrible. It may have a high concentration of intelligent people, but many of those are stuck working at coffee shops just to live in FC. But I guess that says a lot about FC and CO , people are willing to do that to live there...
These are just a few negatives that honestly may not really be negatives to many people. Of course there is no perfect place to live - you can spend your whole life searching for that. I'd list out the positives too, but this post would get really unruly :)
- snow/cold (however its the mildest you will find for a place that gets snow). But snow is snow if you don't like it
-if you are from the coasts (say CA) you may not dig the politics - mainly b/c its not a one sided echo chamber like I find CA to be. I found it to be a decent mix of both major parties. Some may not like this, but personally I found it refreshing.
- no oceans - land locked
- fairly isolated... besides Denver there are not a lot of large cities around to easily travel to. But the counterpoint to this is that DIA is a major airport with lots of flight options.
- public transportation is not really great - you will need a car, especially in the winter. But it is better than many major US cities (US public transportation is pretty awful in general anyway). This is one area I really wish CO would do a bit of forward thinking on building this out quickly now before it becomes CA bay area/LA. It is disconcerting considering that it would be fairly easy to accomplish since most of the populous cities in CO are located in a straight line North/South along the mountain range. Ideal for a high speed train with east/west light rail into the city cores. But, I digress... :)
- depending on the city/area you decide to settle in, pay is not quite where it needs to be to support the quickly rising housing costs. I visit probably 1-2x per year and it is amazing the amount of growth and population surge that has occurred in the past few years. Denver is experiencing a huge boom right now and housing is not keeping up. Outside of Denver or Boulder proper I found salaries to be pretty low compared to cost of living. For instance, I lived in one of the cities mentioned in the article (Fort Collins). Although IMO a great city to live, the IT job market is horrible. It may have a high concentration of intelligent people, but many of those are stuck working at coffee shops just to live in FC. But I guess that says a lot about FC and CO , people are willing to do that to live there...
These are just a few negatives that honestly may not really be negatives to many people. Of course there is no perfect place to live - you can spend your whole life searching for that. I'd list out the positives too, but this post would get really unruly :)