Not as bad as everyone says
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1/13/2022
I have lived in AZ and CO my entire life. Pueblo has always been the worst reputation area in CO along with Fountain. This stigma has never been shook off.
Cheap (relatively), good nature. Pueblo's climate is very familiar to me but others may dislike it. I make 80k here so there are good jobs, but they are nowhere near as plentiful as the Springs. You can also easily work here and commute to the extreme southern Springs or vice-versa as the commute is only 35 miles. Most jarringly, Pueblo is very different in look and feel from the other two major front range cities. It is less massive suburban sprawl and more large pieces of land with custom houses, no congestion, and just not as much going on. Also, climate-wise it is much more like NM or AZ than the snow-laden aspen land people associate with CO (kind've overstated when most of the state is plains/desert anyway).
Downsides? Very little development relative to the other two. It feels much emptier, and there are some very rust-belt slummy areas here unlike any you will find in the other two cities. This is pretty much undoubtedly the worst of the 3 major cities in CO, however there are also good neighborhoods. CSU Pueblo is there but I can't speak on it, that may be an issue for those with kids of that age as the community college transfer system in the other two is amazing (I used it myself). It is telling that the area RIGHT next to the university is just now being developed and not even at massive scale.
I live in Fountain but work in Pueblo, just because the commute is worth it for me. It is however one of the last affordable areas in Colorado that isn't a little town out in the plains an hour from Denver. I think this alone is going to, over the next 30-50 years, end up with the Springs basically developed down to Pueblo. Just my thoughts.
D | Thornton, CO