Posted on 08/03/2018 12:00:16 PM PDT by beaversmom
When asked about a popular restaurant, Yogi Berra put it like only Yogi could. “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”
Well, Colorado has turned into that restaurant.
A fascinating recent report by The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi (which I’m pretty sure is the name he made up to start a budget winery) details the demographic shifts happening to our once ruggedly individualistic state. More people are still pouring into Colorado than sneaking out, but the gap is narrowing.
Last year was the first drop this decade in people moving here from other states. At the same time, more people were leaving Colorado than ever before. There were still 30,000 more coming than going, so don’t think our population is shrinking. They’re still flooding in like the Chinese into Korea during the war, and destroying what Colorado used to be.
People have always come here, that’s not news. The real story is people are escaping at record numbers to get away from what the state has sadly become.
Most anti-growth types yap about how all these out-of-state transplants hurt the “character” of their communities. To the point even traditionally sensible places like Lakewood have turned tribal in attempting growth limits, foolishly thinking it will reduce traffic and give them back some elbowroom. Elitist Boulder proves it does just the opposite.
“Character” of communities always changes and we’ll always long for what they used to be like in our younger years.
People are fleeing Colorado not because there’s too many people here or a box store replaced a mom-and-pop shop (don’t worry, the box store will be replaced by Amazon drones, and later something will replace that). They’re bolting because what it is to be a Coloradan has changed.
Deep down in its soul there has been a seismic shift in the spirit of Colorado, in its people. It’s not the change in the physical “character” of our town. It’s the change in the character of our people.
You feel it. You’re reminded of it every time you roll your eyes when you’re stuck behind a California license plate in traffic. You feel it with the growing “triggered” society, ready to riot over a sign at a coffee shop. You feel it with every proposal to raise “fees” on grocery bags or drinks with sugar, force green roofs, municipalize power companies, raise sin taxes on smoking, build city-owned internet, growth control, gun control, healthcare control. Control, control, control. You feel it — we are becoming California.
More than ever Coloradans want to make decisions for other people and engineer how others live. This is wildly antithetical to the Colorado I grew up in.
The personal stories in Svaldi’s report echo this Californication as the reasons our escapees are fleeing: “The growth of our beautiful city has brought nothing but increased traffic, angry entitled transplants who have no respect, and a cost of living that is through the roof.” “Colorado had become very liberal, anti-religion, anti-gun and way too sensitive about stuff.”
Colorado has always been a destination state, perhaps THE destination state in THE destination nation. Why? Because people were drawn to Colorado because it was the place where one could write his own biography.
People who craved the freedom to make their own decisions were pulled to this state by some unseen magnet which created the Colorado Character.
Miners, farmers, ranchers, brewers, artists, techies and businessmen all were drawn here and had one common denominator: a fearless desire to take on risk. They directed their own activities, made their own calls, and through the power of freely associating with others built the greatest state in America. The tales of their failures and successes only powered the magnet more.
The magnet that seems to pull today’s new Coloradans are pretty mountains, a job, and home that somehow costs less than the one they’re selling in California.
The new Colorado character craves the illusion of security and certainty of outcome.
It’s time to rename our state East California.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
Ooops, left out the author...Jon Caldara. Any way to add that? Thank you.
I was going to ping you Beaversmom.
Then I saw you posted it LOL.
I will ping Grace instead :)
Last December?
Ahhh poop, I left out the date, too. Yes, December 2017 is the date of the article. lol. I hit submit way too soon.
Thanks.
When California was flooded with flower-children and other free-thinkers from across the nation, it was California’s fault.
When California was gorged with illegal aliens, it was California’s fault.
When these folks began to harm California, it was California’s fault.
Now when places like Colorado go South, it’s California’s fault.
Colorado is Colorado, and every bit of blame that was leveled at California, can now be leveled at Colorado for not controlling their state. Hey, that’s what folks said about California.
If it was and still is California’s fault, it’s also Colorado’s fault.
The common denominator is marijuana , wherever it comes into regular and casual open usage societies are morally corrupted by it . I think it is some kind of door way to the demonic realms , where all the stuff that then follows tend to originate from . And this is the path our nation is on . Stoned out me, me, me .
This article is exactly right. The cost of living and real estate has a very California feel to it as well the last year or so.
Forty five years ago the most popular bumper sticker in Colorado was...
DON’T CALIFORNICATE COLORADO!
Well, it has been.
Fabulous writing, for once, that provides concrete details of its thesis which explain why the big move out of CO. Where’s the next Colorado going to be? Texas, Tennessee, Idaho? Where are these folks going?
He’s right when it comes to the Front Range. All urban areas become lousy places to live eventually. A lot of the small towns are still great though, especially on the western slope.
I am native born Californian and I am still here (please don’t blame me, I voted for Reagan as Governor and President). At least 10% of the people that I graduate from grammar school, one of my brothers, and several other California natives that I have known have all moved to Colorado.
I underwent electronics training at Lowry AFB, in Denver, back in the early 60’s; I thought Colorado was so beautiful, and thought I’d like to move there when I got out of the military.
Well, it didn’t happen, and now I’m so glad it didn’t.
Liberals have the knack of turning a paradise into a $h/+hole.
>>Ahhh poop, I left out the date, too. Yes, December 2017 is the date of the article. lol. I hit submit way too soon.<<
It only leaves the question:
Last December?
I remember seeing a bumper sticker near Cortez in the mid-80s reading “Don’t Californicate Colorado”.
Eventually we all become California. So goes the nation.
NV is on board as well. Vegas and X-plants are dragging us down. Well, Reno isn’t helping these days either.
You are right. It’s our nation’s fault. What we have become as a people. It’s systemic. But we are becoming very California-ized here. Culture, politics, policy, cost of living. (Hey, it’s not all bad. Maybe we will get an In and Out, but I have heard they are not what they used to be...and I would only get a veggie burger anyway.) I’d love to visit CA someday. Heck, I might even want to live there if things were different. But I can’t because of the astronomical prices to just live.
That would have been about 10 years before I saw it.
I went to college there, graduating/moving on in 1974. Don’t recall ever seeing it in that era.
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