This past weekend I was in Colorado Springs. Visiting sick friends. I have been to Colorado a ton of times. land at DIA and hit i70 or i40 and ski.
This is the first time taking 25 south to CS.. It was depressing and disgusting at the same time. The amount of suburban sprawl is unreal. I would say roughly a million units? I was shocked at the total disregard for any type of planning. Did anyone possibly think about water? The front range is basically the prairie. No trees and brown scrub grass and track homes for as far as the eye can see..I have never ever seen so many corporate restaurants and big box stores.. IMO it was hell..
Except for my friends and Air force Academy there is nothing worth saving in Colorado Springs..Ok maybe Garden of the Gods in the early morning..
If I knew how to Short the housing market there, I would bet the farm on the collapse. They are one cigarette butt away from a million being homeless..
I could go on for ever...I'm just stunned..
Oh, I hear ya. And it's all heading east. Colorado Springs growth is limited by the high peaks it snuggles next to, but, if you're ever bored, check out Aurora off of 225 around the spot it turns north towards I70 and the airport. I stayed there in a Marriott about five years ago. Everything is brand new. Roads, homes, strip malls, everything. It's like what I imagine China is like, but without the rows of condo towers. And, I just checked the map, it's spread miles east into that flat, fire prone prairie. Sprawl. SLC is doing this, just expanding south into the desert, everything new. There was nothing there before. Nothing.
This is why, if somebody lives there and smugly drives a Tesla, thinking they're helping, I think they should be carjacked and beaten with a stick.
Remember the Marshall fire near Boulder in 21? Good example of building in harm's way, and then blaming climate change, or just dumb luck. Forty years ago, that would have been a lot of smoke and maybe dead cattle, but, guess what? Put a whole pile of flammable material like homes and cars with gas in them and tanks of fuel for heating in a dry, windy field, and, poof, some couldn't get out fast enough. But, you know, they'll rebuild with even more homes and flammable material, not blaming themselves, of course
Google Ed Quillen's columns from the Denver Post all about Stupid Zones. He has since passed, but, had no mercy for those that built 5 thousand sq ft homes up in the Colorado Springs hills nestled in a dry pine forest, and maybe even with a cedar shake roof. Amazing that they can still get insurance.
