Denver is inexpensive compared to California, Seattle, NYC, and Boston. But it is (relatively) urban, dense, walkable, and bikeable, with lots more bike lanes incoming. It has a mass-transit system of sorts, although it really needs a north-south subway connecting Cherry Creek to Downtown and past the freeway, as well as an east-west subway along Colfax. It has relatively good and sunny weather. The airport is very large and relatively easy to get to. The economy is pretty strong. Taxes are not insanely high. I was looking at it as a possible place to move.

Austin has many of those, but without mass transit, and Phoenix has some, but it's less urban and the traffic is horrible.

Also notable: virtually isolated from natural disasters: no earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wild fires (in the urban areas), volcanoes, floods, tsunamis, land slides, avalanches, or sink-holes.

Also, climate modelling says that it's going to get wetter which would make its land more arable.

So, good retirement investment.

Also, much nicer weather than people think.

Not to mention you are hours away from world class skiing

While I agree that more both north-south and east-west transit lines are needed, the geography of the area makes subways prohibitively expensive. The soils in the area are expandable soils, and run deep. Any subway tunnels would have to be dug much deeper than is typical, down to a depth of year-round consistent humidity and temperature, so not to be destroyed by seasonal soil shifts.

An elevated line would be more feasible (and is indeed in place for some portions of the existing rail lines), but again, you still have to sink your supporting piles deep due to the soil, and that raises the costs. This is why the existing rail transit in the metro area largely follows rail corridors that existed beforehand.

Finally, botched project management has eroded public will to support more rail lines.

I want more transit rail too, but getting it is going to be an uphill battle.

Shhhh, don't ruin it for us.

It's really terrible there, don't move there!

Legal weed, friendly people, crazy nice weather, 30 degrees and people are out in tshirts and boots, outdoor stuff.

It's some kind of hippie Shangra La. We go there when we can for long weekends.

The cooler weather in Denver and huge focus on fitness / outdoors beats the pants off Austin for me on any given day. I do indeed want to be healthier and spend time outdoors!

Others have mentioned it but having lived near there its a great place. Tons of outdoor things to do(Rockies near there, trails everywhere). Clean urban area with many sports teams and restaurants/bars. You want urban living you have plenty of condos/appts. You want Suburban living its there as well. Pace of life is great, not a work-til-you die slog like the bay area. Weather is pretty mild compared to the east coast/mid-west. Denver is part of a larger area called the front range which goes from south(colorado springs, to Denver/Aurora, out to Boulder area and north at Fort Collins). That whole area is booming and could be a major tech hotspot in the next 5-10 years.

It has many of the advantages of the Bay Area (outdoor activities, craft brewing scene, bike paths). Denver and Boulder have very nice, walkable downtowns. Cost of living is lower than the Bay Area or NYC (but Boulder is approaching fast).

I live in downtown Denver and I just want to point out all the good food is spread out across the metro area, it’s only walkable in a very weak sense. There’s also zero bodega/corner store/corner deli/food carts downtown, aside from two 7-11s and a CVS. Boulder has much better food and stores close to where people live.

I don't know if Denver has any food it's known for. Maybe craft beer?

Mountains are the thing.

Totally, but it’s also not easy to get over to the mountains without a car!

It's a reasonable facsimile to the west coast urban cultural environment and is cheaper than the big three metro areas. I don't know that there's much more to say about it than that. Portland is en vogue for many of the same reasons.

Probably not the main driver, but it's 2 hours from some of the best skiing & snowboarding in the world!

Pot?