Going through Metropolis puberty
-
12/6/2020
I have lived for 45 years in the Denver metro area. The single biggest problem with living here is the irrationally high cost of living. Anyone that has lived here for more than a decade will attest that population growth coupled with lack of infrastructure and housing is the greatest negative driver in many people's attitudes. The traffic is only bad for about 4 hours a day; the rest of the time, it is manageable. When the median home cost is $428,000, but to buy a house, you are always bidding war, driving prices higher. Rent is actually worse than purchase prices. The issues would all be manageable if the planning committees had any foresight. They would have accounted for a major population growth when they authorized, encouraged, or recruited new companies to move to Denver.
As you can see in the other posts, natives blame new arrivals for "ruining" Denver, but those newer residents moved here because Colorado is amazing for many reasons. Yes, Marijuana is legal, and there are many places you can smell the use. However, it is not disruptive to enjoying the city. New residents far outnumber natives. You feel like there is no sense of community within most metropolitan area neighbors who often don't know or speak to each other and often avoid it when possible. Denver is so busy trying to be a city on the rise that they lost their sense of who they were. If you like to watch the rebirth of a city and don't mind continual change, Denver is a nice place to live.
G | Ken Caryl, CO