about Pueblo Colorado
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3/12/2011
Lived here more than 30 years simply because the spouse doesn't want to move and has good income from sources outside of Pueblo. Most people who don't like Pueblo are here because they can't get the other half to move. Some still here because they went broke and can't move. Mostly, the ones wanting to leave are wives because women here don't really like to make new friends. They have friends they've known since birth or at least high school, and their family is all here. They don't need new friends. You make friends with people who aren't from here and all you end up doing is griping about how bad you want to leave but the spouse won't do it. Most of those spouses are home grown Puebloans. There aren't really any groups to join here either. Two good things about Pueblo - clean air and no rush hour traffic. Cultural life is minimal. Economy very bad. Poverty rate really high. Mostly small local employers who won't or can't pay decent wages and tell young people they don't need to attend college. If you don't have connections you'll be lucky if you can get in with one of the few larger companies. A few big companies are here but their facilities aren't big. If you're lucky, you can work your way up to $40,000 a year over ten or fifteen years. Population is about 50/50 white and hispanic. They pretend to like each other but I think they really don't because they tend to stick with their own (weird to watch the racial/ethnic dynamic here). Most of the native Puebloans have never travelled outside of the city. Seriously, never even been to Denver. Many are so poor they can't maintain the old small homes they own. Some have their mortgages paid off and most drive new cars. But a lot of them have bill collectors chasing them. It's wierd but it seems like a lot of these people don't even know how poor they are. I guess because they've never worked anywhere else and don't have family that did either. If you plan to open a business here well, check out the economy before putting any money in it. Most retirees are barely surviving because they never earned enough to save any money. Many employers don't offer 401(k) or health benefits. Education system very poor, except for the university, but most of its graduates leave Pueblo in order to make more than $8 or $10 an hour after graduating. Pueblo largely has upper middle class, lower middle class and poor. Not many in the middle part of middle class. Crime is bad especially domestic violence and gang activity, burglaries, muggings. Home invasions were a big problem a few years ago but they either stopped or have been hushed up. The area around the country club declined because everyone moved out after the invasions started. A lot of things in Pueblo get hushed up because the locals don't want to be embarrassed by having negative things about Pueblo made public. Pueblo is kind of a joke in the northern part of the state because of stuff like that. So Puebloans stay quiet and nothing changes or things just get worse. They denied they had gangs for about 10 years, until they just couldn't deny it anymore when graffiti was all over everything in the city. If you're thinking about living here, rent for six months, see if you can get a job that pays enough to live on, find out if your kids will be safe and able to learn anything in school, and see if you can make any friends. If you decide you like it, then you can buy a house, but be careful about the "inexpensive" housing because most of it is in bad neighborhoods. The rural areas are pretty good places to live but they're expensive and have no public transportation, shopping, etc. You'll spend a fortune on gas. By the way, city busses in Pueblo only run until 6:00 p.m. and don't run at all on Sundays, so public transportation sucks even in the city. If you come from a big city and don't like to brown nose in order to have a good job or career, Pueblo's not the place for you. If you're not "someone" you'll have a very hard time financially. Most newcomers don't stay because they can't make enough money. That was the case even before the recession. Employers make you work overtime but don't pay you time and a half. They also like to make you exempt from overtime and then work you to death. They expect you to do all this volunteer stuff for them on your own time. This region of the state is so poor that businesses don't make a lot of money. They like to run with minimal staffing and work you 50 or 60 hours a week for chump change. Puebloans don't seem to know their rights and never reports these chumps to the Department of Labor so they just work for nothing and then don't know why they're broke when they retire, if they ever get to retire. Commuting to Colorado Springs to work isn't a great option either. Maintenance costs on your car are huge along with all the gas you have to pay for. The commute is about an hour if you're going to the north end of Colorado Springs and their job market was hit harder than Pueblo's from the recession and hasn't really come back. Pueblo didn't get hit as hard because it doesn't have as many businesses. Most of the hits in Pueblo were in construction. Don't let a realtor tell you you don't need a cooling system in the $200,000 house you're about to buy in Pueblo or Pueblo West. It actually has happened. One guy from California works from his home and was told that we don't really have that many warm days here and he didn't need a cooling system in his newly built two story house. So he buys the house and sets his office up in an upstairs bedroom. Summer rolls around and he's roasting every day while he's tring to earn money. Found out it was going to cost him $10,000 to install central heating and cooling but he didn't have the money. He put it all into the move from California and the purchase of the house. Another guy almost bought a house and found out at the last minute that a river runs under it and floods the basement every spring. Whoever lives there runs a pump in the basement around the clock for a couple months every year. Another realtor sold someone property where they planned to build a house but didn't bother to let him know that the property has no water source. He had to install a cistern and has water trucked in. Another time, a realtor rented a rural house to someone from out of town. The house was on well water. Everyone started getting sick and they finally had the county test the well water. It was contaminated. The owners and the realtor knew it before they rented it out too. Realtors get away with murder in Colorado, so be forewarned - check out everything a realtor tells you before you sign a contract on a house anywhere in the state. Pueblo has a code that if you need a new water heater you can't install it yourself. You have to hire a licensed professional. Found that out when a friend of ours tried to replace his water heater. I think they did it to force people to pay businesses so they can stay in business. Favorite form of entertainment for women in Pueblo? Shopping and going out to eat. Pueblo has nothing but run of the mill restaurants and fast food joints. Obesity rate is ridiculous here. So is teenage pregnancy and drug use. I could go on but you get the message. I'm outahere as soon as spouse agrees. I'm applying the pressure like never before cause I can't face another 30 years here. It may come down to me or Pueblo, take your pick. That's how bad it is.
Jane | Pueblo, CO