Reviews & Comments
Denver, CO
Decent under 40 playground if you can afford it -
11/10/2021I find it both disturbing and humorous that any city small or large listed here that has a reasonable number of reviews, say 20+, everyone is complaining of the same thing. “Outsiders” moving in, traffic, crime, homeless, drugs, skyrocketing costs. Let’s face it folks, America is filling up. And places like CA are emptying, with millions more people that will likely relocate. You are not going to escape that anywhere, unless you buy acreage in a remote locale.
As for Denver, I’ll offer my honest review, take it or leave it, hate it or not. I moved here when I was 20, just before Denver began to take off mid-90’s. Back then it was the hidden gem, albeit a bit of a cow town, that boomers and older X’ers like me now reminisce about. Downtown was dead after 5pm. For fun you either partied or climbed/skied mountains. The economy was boom or bust. But you could drive to places like Castle Rock or Loveland/FoCo and see lots of open land. We had an airport and a football team. Politically, it was much more purple than today, and people had their civil arguments but generally got along rather than threatening to harm each other just because of political differences. It was a good place to be a moderate independent.
I’ve had a great career and education here, met many friends, and have been proud to call Denver home. Until the last 5-10 years. Denver is plagued by all the problems that any other big city has. And part of the problem is that it went from a small big city to a big big city. I would still take it any day over places like Chicago or Portland. But the mentality of people that want to trash a great place I don’t get. From the trails and campgrounds to downtown. Shootings and road rage literally daily in my neighborhood. And for $600K you too can have all this LOL.
On the plus side, there are lots of amenities to enjoy, even more career opportunities now, better shopping, restaurants, live music and cultural options. And there are still a lot of great people here amongst the angry, paranoid, neurotic, clueless, stoned, aggressive, irrational, entitled ones. It’s time for me to move smaller, but for anyone moving here, if you accept that you are moving to a big city with big city problems, Denver is still one of the better ones. No where is perfect. Southern CA came close mid-century, then 20 million people moved there. Denver is on track to become that one day soon.