Quality of life not what it was ten years ago.
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2/13/2008
I have lived in Grand Junction for over 25 years. The western side of Colorado has always been the least spoiled part of the state as the Front Range-Eastern side (Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo) has gotten to be one big crowded place, bad traffic, dirty air and all the things that go with city life. In the last five years Grand Junction has gotten a dose of this with the growth in the natural gas industry in our area. We now have some better paying jobs but we also have thousands of people moving in for the jobs and they have little or no feeling for the area just the desire to chase employment. Housing costs have gone way up and still most people in GJ don't make much more money than they did five years ago. Not everyone can or even wants to work 80 hours aweek in the oil patch. Most of the newcomers, not all, are undereducated and just here for awhile. Meth is a big problem as well as petty nuisance crimes that are on the increase. Air quality, especially in the winter, has gotten very bad with about 100 very dirty, smokey days per year. Traffic is much worse lately and the city fathers have done a poor job dealing with the growth and the general aesthetics of the area. Lots of idiots in the outlying areas with junked cars and refrigerators in their yards as no local governing bodies seem to want to tackle this. In general the quality of life has greatly suffered in the area that up until about five years ago was still a relatively unspoiled place. I guess no where is Eden anymore.......
BJ | Grand Junction, CO