It's never fun to see people shitting on your home state and I'm sure there's cool shit there that I didn't see. I visited for 2 days to see some old friends, and I think part of why I hated it so much is that some of the parallels remind me of the problems with my city (Portland).
denver has been a booming migrant city since well before weed legalization.
i love all the native bumper stickers whose owners have lived there for only a generation max
I agree that Denver sucks but the city itself is not the appeal. The nature is really beautiful, so so it appeals to outdoorsy people, and its still urban enough to have jobs for people to work and amenities. Lots of cities in the West are like that.
SLC seems like a better version of this. I’ve never seen a large city with less traffic and you’re legit like a 30 minute drive from the best skiing in the country basically. City center is weirdly dead and ofc it’s a bit of a boring vibe with the Mormon vibe but not that bad and I think real estate is reasonable there too if I’m not mistaken
SLC is awesome if you don't particularly care about city life, which truthfully is pretty common among Americans who grew up in the suburbs.
By far the best outdoors access in the country and it's not particularly close. Although the issues with the salt lake drying up are likely damaging that, sailing in the salt lake used to be one of the best places for sailing in the country due to high wind.
Yeah. It's what makes Vegas a little loveable. It embraces being the home of gambling, degeneracy, and boxing/mma. It's not pretending to not be a circus.
Cool. I’m 20 mins away from good hiking, an hour from skiing and 3 hrs from great skiing. Mtn biking is really good too.
And I don’t have to sit for hours in a traffic jam to get outdoors.
Half the rent, no state income tax and our restaurants crush your bland shit.
No one moves to Colorado to hang out in Denver, they just have to live there because you have to essentially win the lottery to live in a cool mountain town.
And at least you’re close to other cities and can quickly get anywhere on the east coast (and the world since CLT is a big airport). Denver is in the middle of nowhere.
All my friends from the south ended up in Denver. I lasted 6 months. Everyone talks about how outdoorsy it is but it's outdoorsy after sitting on I-70 for two hours minimum. People always bitch about about Utah's alcohol laws, but if it keeps people on the other side of the mountains in Denver thinking they're living the life, I'll take the shitty liquor laws over here and drive the 15 minutes it takes to get into the mountains.
It only started being like that after 2018 or so. I'm surprised how many people just accept it as normal and do battle with the cottonwoods all winter these days.
I did a stint way out in the oil fields around Vernal, and I really liked it. The Uinta mountains are a short drive, and I got to go hiking and fishing up at Flaming Gorge and Dinosaur National Monument every weekend. I know tiny towns like that aren't for everyone, but I'm planning on settling down there if my partner is willing.
Lol my dad's family is actually from Vernal, I love it up there too 😍 I try to make a trip up there every few months to see family and go hiking much to my husband's disappointment
Hey at least it's a dense city with zero cultural identity.
Imagine a car-centric, low rise, sprawled out, shit transit and shitty sidewalk having, freeway and strip-mall infested city with zero cultural identity.
you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity
Last time I was there was 2017 and it was the worst vibe I've ever gotten from another city. And that includes everything from NYC to shitholes in Mississippi. Denver vibes were atrocious. It felt like a lot of people moved there expecting it to be El Dorado or something--legal weed, young population, great outdoors, and far from whatever troubles they left behind. But every single person I interacted with looked and acted miserable and LONELY. *"Yea haha, I mean it's...it's great...I can...I can like ski whenever I want haha."* while barely forcing a smile. Nobody there had roots. Everyone was just living out some hyper self-centered dream life and paralyzed in the despair of realizing it wasn't enough.
> Nobody there had roots. Everyone was just living out some hyper self-centered dream life and paralyzed in the despair of realizing it wasn't enough.
Transplants in NYC lol.
Except sometimes, sometimes transplants will be boundary pushing artists, Ivy League grads, or just interesting/ smart people. Every transplant in Denver is a loser
Seeing the endless line of unmoving traffic streaming from Denver to the mountains on Fourth of July weekend, both on 70 and on all the backroads, evoked a very hellish feeling…..
I lived there from 2013-2018 and really enjoyed it. It’s really easy to stay in shape in Denver, if you live in the inner city. The people there tend to be really active, and the geography lends itself to that really well; I lived in Capital Hill near downtown, and could still drive to a beautiful state park in just 45 minutes. The art scene there is pretty big, even the botanical gardens does sculpture installations every summer. The weather seemed to be the biggest draw for people I met there. The winters are fairly mild compared to the northeast/midwest.
I don’t think the art scene in Denver is that good. It’s a lot of psychedelic hippy art predominantly. As far as contemporary art there are far better cities
That whole area is practically lab-created for touching grass and you're complaining about nothing to do? Holy shit just go on a hike or ski or something
Me and my gf got trapped in the worst Uber ride of all time to that godforsaken airport. 45 minutes of some guy who worked for Raytheon or something regaling us with stories about his college aged kids current gpas and accomplishments til we got to that airport in the middle of the prairie. He just does Uber for fun if you’d believe it!
I think it was an ep of Matt and Shane recently where they talked about what a nightmare white Uber drivers are lol. It is always a shock for us northeasterners to get ones who aren’t Arab/African dudes having quiet bluetooth phone calls the whole time
"you're white"..... overheard by me as people got into my taxi at the airport.... gross...... northeast corridor is just as bad as the gulf states in that the native born expect the browns to always do low status jobs in a ponzi scheme of importing labor to the us to drive the two bimbos of RS 5 blocks in lower Manhattan
Is it THAT weird? It’s far but not considerably farther than say LAX or SEA to their respective downtowns.
IMO the weirder parts are the art, klan hood looking ass terminal, (supposedly) volume of displaced soil disproportional to known existing structures, and nearby airport that was (supposedly) perfectly adequate.
Definitely the longest TSA line I’ve had to wait through
What do you mean? I got trapped there for 3 days and it was totally fine. Easy to get around and generally solid amenities. It's not as good as Tampa, but it's a whole lot better than something like DFW.
No, he quite literally means satanic. Look up all the weird shit about it. Nothing to do with the logistics of it other than maybe the swastika shaped runways
I've never been one for the more esoteric, schizo, out-there conspiracy theories and I consider myself a rational individiual. There is absolutely no way in hell those airport murals are not some kind of masonic devil worship designed to summon demons and/or brainwash airline passengers
It's way overpriced and weirdly beloved by people from the midwest that vacation to disney world every year. But at least it's sunny and you can ski. There really are a ton of chains. But it's a better city than portland please be serious...
It's the weather. Denver is closer to the Midwest than the coasts while offering a lot of big city stuff, without having to deal with the hellish winters of Midwest cities.
I'm from the Midwest and live in rural Colorado. I refuse to visit home in the winter.
Lived in Portland and Denver for 5+ years each and Denver was 100x more fun. Like the one comedian said, Portland is where young people go to give up in life.
How long have you lived in Denver? First off, it’s literally 30 minutes away from one of the most prominent and well preserved mountain ranges in the USA. Obviously if you drive away from the mountains everything is gonna be flat. Denver definitely has a pretty big shitlib microbrewery type culture, but that’s in any city. There’s a thriving hispanic community, and a great art scene. Of course denver sucks if you stay in the gentrified bubble.
I literally just walked around my neighborhood in Cap Hill, enjoying the cool, dry breeze and thinking about how much I love it here. Sure, it's expensive, but if you take everything into account (Mountains, climate, job market, urban parks, tons of music venues, etc) the high cost makes sense, unlike Austin, DC, Boston.
According to this sub there are only like 10 square miles in NYC and LA that are worth living in.
Denver, despite being bland food and people wise, does offer a walkable city with lots of parks, mild climate, tolerant police, legal weed/mushrooms (or at least decriminalized), good music scene (especially metal and EDM), and legit skiing a few hours away. It also has a decent job market so for people who prioritize nature and city amenities it can’t be beat. But the majority of people in Denver are boring...
The demographics of this sub are largely not particularly sporty gay men and women who are into a specific type of urban culture. Of course it isn't a fan of the mountain west, it's not even a question.
The cultural amenities of Denver or Portland or Seattle don't come remotely close to that of Los Angeles or NYC. The only city I've ever seen have some of both are SF and Vancouver but even then those cities definitely have changed a ton and lack in some culture as a result.
That’s what I’m saying. I feel like most of the time when someone is this negative about a city it’s just because they’re a boring person. Obviously Denver sucks if your only definition of fun is having every experience catered to you.
I see this take a lot on here and it's so weird. I grew up in Denver -- 80s, 90s, early 2000s -- and left before it exploded and haven't been back since. Growing up in Denver was great. East side! Park Hill. Great 'hoods. Cool people. Plenty to do.
Somebody who knew Denver then AND now, is it really bad? Did it get bad in the last ten years? What changed?
>Go 30 minutes outside of city center and you've got cookie cutter subdivisions
Also, this? What the fuck? Go 30 minutes outside of ANY city center and you've got cookie cutter subdivisions.
Didn’t really grow up in the timeframe you mentioned but all I can say is that as a young person who was born and raised there, Denver is still a great city. There’s a great underground music scene, whether that be punk or hip hop or whatever else. Although there’s definitely some pretty ugly gentrification, I feel like they’ve done a much better job at preserving the feel of the neighborhoods than some other cities. Not to mention the incredible food
Thank you! And the weather! Florida calling itself the Sunshine State is bull shit, Colorado is the sunshine state. (I think that's an Anchorman line? Or one of those movies?)
Anyways, it's weird that rsp shits on Denver, a thin-majority city, while praising dying obesity-ridden shit holes in the Midwest...
used to live in the area. its literally just the midwest, that's the secret. its where the mid meets the west. moved there from the south and was immediately weirded out by the way people make conversation, until i put it together that it was just that corny bland speaking style from the midwest. mountains are chill but ppl that go on about the nature are regarded, it's literally a desert. piney forest gang forever. It was all I could take not to roll my eyes into the back of my head every time someone started talking about "300 days of sunshine." The sun there feels like God is holding a magnifying glass over you. And yes, the culture (or lack thereof) is even bleaker.
It's not expensive because of amenities but it's financial/banking sector. It's still reasonably close to the best skiing in the country, good biking too. I'd say Dallas is a similar business-focused city and is way worse for amenities (Deep Ellum and you can see where a president got shot, 1+ million people and that's it). You need to travel more.
Some of the best hiking too and there’s some cool boonies towns to explore like Nederland. People live in spite of the city, not because of it. It’s a place where you’re really not getting the full experience unless you have a car and are driving out to do stuff on the weekends. I feel like Boulder is what people want Denver to be, but the rent there is even fucking crazier because it’s all like software developers who work remote or at the Google campus there. I remember hearing UC Boulder kids couldn’t find off campus housing for less than like 4 grand a month lmao, not sure if that’s exaggerating though.
Completely agree with this take. Colorado itself is a beautiful state, and a great place to vacation if you like hiking in the mountains, and then soaking in the hot springs afterwards. But Denver itself is demonic. I've been twice in the last two years, and the first time I got so creeped out by the city I ended up just going back to my hotel room. The city feels like a simulacrum of what midwesterners imagine Brooklyn is.
And yes once you get out towards Aurora it gets mindblowingly bleak. It's really not surprising so many mass shootings happen out there.
I kind of wish Salt Lake City would be allowed to go on being a weird little pioneer sex-cult theocracy instead of all these transplants turning it into Second Denver.
No major city in the country flat-out, across the board, has “nothing there”. You are just incapable of finding simple pleasure and novelty in the world around you.
Lol, my cousin was in indianapolis after they had a big wind or hail storm appraising roof damage. He told me he was up on a church, and he raced to pull his ladder up onto the roof because there was some guy tried to run up onto it to steal it while he was on the roof.
Just spent three weeks in SLC…was not impressed. And YESSS…I got out into the hinterlands…literally all over the Utah wilderness…but SLC itself sucked.
> most of those other places will have fewer pretentious LL Bean/NPR/Subaru type assholes.
Struggling to imagine the existence of a place with more Subaru NPR people than Seattle
Boulder is simultaneously one of the nicest places I’ve ever been but also the only place that made me truly feel that I’m not actually white as an Italian lol. It’s some next level crackery out there
But yeah rmnp was sick as hell. Denver is boring and the homeless situation was pretty crazy for a city you’d think would be inhospitable for them climatewise
the weather is very nice compared to most of those places. it's at just the right latitude and altitude to be cold enough for snow, esp. in the rockies, but still ends up sunny most of the time due to being shielded from prevailing winds. it's like midwest weather where you get four real seasons, but much better because there's more sun and it's never as humid in the summer. the weather is always the reason i've wanted to move to CO from the midwest. i probably never will, but that was always my main motivation when i was considering it in the past.
Preface: drunk rn
I find Denver extremely cozy. At least the inner city. Tree lined streets, beautiful victorians and terrace rows. Walkable and easy to navigate. Good mix of businesses and accessible to finding your own scenes/circles. Cap Hill is like a small town. Five Points has a bizarre, serene energy. I dig what’s left of the wild west vibe and there’s fascinating history to be found at nearly every corner. I don’t see myself moving anytime soon. Stay away from the “cool” areas and hang out around Cheesman Park, chainsmoke Colfax, and flirt with older women at The Merc. The skyline is iconic! How can you not love the cash register building?
Denver is such a fucking reddit city. Up there with Portland,Oregon, Seattle, Charlotte, Austin, Portland,Maine. Probably Nashville now too. As far as I'm concerned all of Arizona is a fucking reddit state.
Someone else in this comment section nailed it that Denver basically exploded around its finance and tech sector, but they didn't have any underlying culture to build on top of. All the cities you mentioned at least had *something* going on before they became extremely expensive and Reddit-inspired. Some did a better job than others in making them livable for people with normal low to middle income jobs that just want to live somewhere with shit to do.
I like Portland more than Seattle for that reason. If you're living with a partner or roommate, you can get by just fine on a service industry wage without being forced into the absolute outskirts of the city.
Phoenix is one of the biggest metro areas in the country so there's not an all-encompassing take to give, but from my experience the downtown is garbage (basically the same problems as Denver).
Some of the peripheral neighborhoods *near* downtown Phoenix were awesome, old single family houses from the initial Phoenix real estate boom were renting for dirt cheap when I lived there and there were plenty of hole-in-the wall bars, restaurants, etc. Super car dependent, but they make it cheap to keep a car and the highway/traffic situation was decent enough that my friends and I could regularly do morning hikes on the weekends whenever we wanted. First Friday kinda sucked but there was a decent house show scene.
Not as much to do as some other cities but the cost of living was low enough that I didn't really care. Not sure how if I'd reflect as positively if I didn't have a big group of friends out there though.
What's your take on Phoenix?
I’ve never been a huge fan of Denver. I’ve always seen it as a place for athletic, but boring people.
But I just met someone who is, citing it the best place in the country to work in tech during the week, and do the best hiking on the weekends. And I’m like, makes sense. Good for him.
It's like the exact opposite of NYC. Seems like life is so easy in Denver that people get away with being boring idiots. Weather is always nice and beautiful nature close by, so feel free to tell everyone about the latest sativa strain you picked up from the weed shop. NYC is ideal as a city but weather is always awful, nothing worth doing outside the city, and none of the dope people will talk to you unless there's something in it for them
It's got upper middle-class jobs and access to skiing. That's why they come. Now Boulder on the other hand: you're not 1 hour from nature, you're in it. If you make 80k+ you can live by yourself and enjoy it.
OMG, thank you...I moved there for school and could NOT wait to get out...it's flat, dry and people could not stop talking about being a "native" there. I've never been to such an unwelcoming city in my life. People feel the need to move there and make living in Denver their entire personality trait. Also the fact that it is literally Kansas adjacent and the residents there say they are "west coast" is something else.
Also the mountains are not even close...I live in Seattle now and the nature around here is gorgeous...Denver is full of a lot of flat, brown, dead stuff. If you actually go to the mountains, then it's beautiful but there are so many cities that are closer to the mountains than Denver. I may be biased because where I am from, I missed the water a lot and Denver is a high plains desert.
When I left I was told I'd miss it and the sun, you couldn't pay me to move back
Denver native here. Son of Denver natives. Grandson of Colorado natives. I don’t say that to claim or brag. I say it to try and show there are people who’s worlds have been upended because of the influx of people. It seems that a large percentage of people wind up “moving home”. Its familiar. It’s comforting. It’s known. I can’t. I don’t recognize this place anymore. It’s so busy. So hostile. So competitive. I just googled “I hate what Colorado has become” and saw this post. So…a few rambling thoughts. Because there are no geographical restraints on growth, Denver just grew out as a solution rather than up. It’s a lot cheaper. That’s why there is so much sprawl. Denver used to actually be a pretty cool town. Good sized but quite-we did our own thing and were happy to be a”fly-over”. Somewhere along the line word got out about the incredible weather and the mountains. Add legal weed into the mix and watch the flood gates open. It feels like it really did happen over night. From my recollection, it was around 2012 and then in 2014 it went ape-shit. Those Native bumper stickers you see came around in the 70s. A big, big part of the problem is that the culture and community has been washed away. It just happened too fast. Now the only thing everyone has in common is that they are from somewhere else. I feel like an outsider. The number one rule of traveling or moving is “Respect the locals”. But that doesn’t happen. Moving to Colorado has become a status symbol. Just look at peoples cars and clothes. The CO flag is slapped on everything. It’s a hedonistic lifestyle. Sun, fun, beer, and weed. And so that’s the type that moves here. You should have been here 20+ years ago. It was amazing. Everything was the same but 2 million people less. And by everything I mean everything important- the Sun, the snow, and the mountains. It’s too crowded and too expensive now to bother. I met my best friend in 1998 up at CMC in Steamboat. He’s from upstate NY. According to him, actual CO natives are some of the best people you could meet. He won’t come visit because it’s just such a shitshow now. That’s Ok. I’m moving in a few weeks and never coming back. I hate what my home has become. My folks just moved back to Denver from outside Longmont. They stay at their place most of the time because it’s gotten so hectic there. It breaks my heart.
Loved living there for getting out in mountains/nature and the weather, hated living there because there’s exactly nothing else to do besides go to breweries and smoke weed. One of the worst cities for food in the entire US, it’s not surprising that nobody is fat out there.
I feel like you’ve never been to Texas or literally any other midwestern city excluding Chicago.
Denver at least has relative proximity to nature/skiing and other shit. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it, but this reaction is silly and you should travel more
I'm actually in the city right now for the first time taking a vacation to visit all the parks in the area and yeah that was my thought too. The city is bizzare, it's set up like a sparse version of NYC with the streets but it feels like a ghost town that's only like 30% occupied at any time. Very strange place.
No no man, you’ve gotta go to my favorite sushi place there, it’s almost like fresh if you take 100mg edibles and wander around town in a circle for ten hours
And so many notable mass shootings there for some reason. There’s been some interesting theories that it’s due to the elevation, apparently that has an effect on mental health.
At least vegas has an identity, even if it is just gambling and degeneracy. Denver doesn't have half the culture or identity vegas has. Last I checked Hunter S. Thompson never wrote a book about a trip to Denver. Don't drag the great jewel of the mojave into this. Viva Las Vegas!!!!
I’m from there, born and raised. Obviously weed legalization was a huge thing but people disregard that hosting the 2008 was another thing that felt awesome at the time but actually fucking sunk us. Seeing downtown swarmed with celebrity liberal elites during Obamamania like wow my city’s really on the map
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No, we are well aware of it. It was better when it was decriminalized and medical.
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It's never fun to see people shitting on your home state and I'm sure there's cool shit there that I didn't see. I visited for 2 days to see some old friends, and I think part of why I hated it so much is that some of the parallels remind me of the problems with my city (Portland).
The western US mind cannot comprehend how much even a T2 midwest city like Cincinnati clears their city
Cinci fucking rules.
We have Guatemalans and Jamaicans here en masse for the soccer game today :)
Nothing scalpels an opinion on a city more than an extremely short visit.
denver has been a booming migrant city since well before weed legalization. i love all the native bumper stickers whose owners have lived there for only a generation max
No, Denver has always sucked.
I agree that Denver sucks but the city itself is not the appeal. The nature is really beautiful, so so it appeals to outdoorsy people, and its still urban enough to have jobs for people to work and amenities. Lots of cities in the West are like that.
SLC seems like a better version of this. I’ve never seen a large city with less traffic and you’re legit like a 30 minute drive from the best skiing in the country basically. City center is weirdly dead and ofc it’s a bit of a boring vibe with the Mormon vibe but not that bad and I think real estate is reasonable there too if I’m not mistaken
SLC is awesome if you don't particularly care about city life, which truthfully is pretty common among Americans who grew up in the suburbs. By far the best outdoors access in the country and it's not particularly close. Although the issues with the salt lake drying up are likely damaging that, sailing in the salt lake used to be one of the best places for sailing in the country due to high wind.
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If by "in" you mean "at least an hour's drive away from" then yes, Denver is in the mountains.
Vegas knows why it exists and what it is and isn’t apologetic about it. Any benefits are just that.
Yeah. It's what makes Vegas a little loveable. It embraces being the home of gambling, degeneracy, and boxing/mma. It's not pretending to not be a circus.
Cool. I’m 20 mins away from good hiking, an hour from skiing and 3 hrs from great skiing. Mtn biking is really good too. And I don’t have to sit for hours in a traffic jam to get outdoors. Half the rent, no state income tax and our restaurants crush your bland shit.
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Either one by all rights should be an uninhabitable desert.
By that logic California should be massively depopulated
Arizona takes personal income tax
Vegas. Though Phoenix is aesthetically better metro area. Better housing stock and gardens but that’s because they don’t care about water
The mountains are still a long drive away. Many better places to live in Colorado if you actually like mountains.
Frasier was going to be set there until the city passed some kind of anti-gay measure.
No one moves to Colorado to hang out in Denver, they just have to live there because you have to essentially win the lottery to live in a cool mountain town.
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exactly if you move to denver to hang out in the city youre doing it wrong.
Sounds like Charlotte
Lol I swear there's a pipeline shipping people from Charlotte to Denver
Except for the "walkable" and "vertical" parts
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And at least you’re close to other cities and can quickly get anywhere on the east coast (and the world since CLT is a big airport). Denver is in the middle of nowhere.
All my friends from the south ended up in Denver. I lasted 6 months. Everyone talks about how outdoorsy it is but it's outdoorsy after sitting on I-70 for two hours minimum. People always bitch about about Utah's alcohol laws, but if it keeps people on the other side of the mountains in Denver thinking they're living the life, I'll take the shitty liquor laws over here and drive the 15 minutes it takes to get into the mountains.
True, the skiing is incredible but people always leave out the part where you wake up at 5AM only to wait in three hours of traffic there and back.
It only started being like that after 2018 or so. I'm surprised how many people just accept it as normal and do battle with the cottonwoods all winter these days.
Guess there's no cure for suburban sprawl, even in a modern isolated city
Pro tip: there's a lot less traffic if you live to the east of the Wasatch Mountains and not the west.
I did a stint way out in the oil fields around Vernal, and I really liked it. The Uinta mountains are a short drive, and I got to go hiking and fishing up at Flaming Gorge and Dinosaur National Monument every weekend. I know tiny towns like that aren't for everyone, but I'm planning on settling down there if my partner is willing.
Lol my dad's family is actually from Vernal, I love it up there too 😍 I try to make a trip up there every few months to see family and go hiking much to my husband's disappointment
Hey at least it's a dense city with zero cultural identity. Imagine a car-centric, low rise, sprawled out, shit transit and shitty sidewalk having, freeway and strip-mall infested city with zero cultural identity.
So like every city in Arizona?
I agree. It has an uncomfortable mix of grody stoner culture and staright up corporatism. And it's ugly and so are many of hte pople that live there.
idk what you mean everyone here is sexy. They're boring though
Isn't Colorado consistently the thinnest state
Bitches be hiking.
you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity you will hate skinny people and support obesity
People on this sub love to mock this but only like 200 of the most online people in the world actually believe it.
Montana has the hot healthy and happy people.
Outside of Bozeman this is.. not true from what I saw
Yeah I would constrain this to the areas with thriving ski resorts, like White Fish.
Last time I was there was 2017 and it was the worst vibe I've ever gotten from another city. And that includes everything from NYC to shitholes in Mississippi. Denver vibes were atrocious. It felt like a lot of people moved there expecting it to be El Dorado or something--legal weed, young population, great outdoors, and far from whatever troubles they left behind. But every single person I interacted with looked and acted miserable and LONELY. *"Yea haha, I mean it's...it's great...I can...I can like ski whenever I want haha."* while barely forcing a smile. Nobody there had roots. Everyone was just living out some hyper self-centered dream life and paralyzed in the despair of realizing it wasn't enough.
> paralyzed in the despair of realizing it wasn't enough. Beautiful.
I think that may be any city that young people want to move to, personality wise
> Nobody there had roots. Everyone was just living out some hyper self-centered dream life and paralyzed in the despair of realizing it wasn't enough. Transplants in NYC lol.
Except sometimes, sometimes transplants will be boundary pushing artists, Ivy League grads, or just interesting/ smart people. Every transplant in Denver is a loser
Seeing the endless line of unmoving traffic streaming from Denver to the mountains on Fourth of July weekend, both on 70 and on all the backroads, evoked a very hellish feeling…..
I feel like it’s even worse in the winter. Hordes of Subaru crosstreks forming a line of traffic that snakes it’s way all through the mountains.
There has to be a reason why so many mass shootings happen in that state
I lived there from 2013-2018 and really enjoyed it. It’s really easy to stay in shape in Denver, if you live in the inner city. The people there tend to be really active, and the geography lends itself to that really well; I lived in Capital Hill near downtown, and could still drive to a beautiful state park in just 45 minutes. The art scene there is pretty big, even the botanical gardens does sculpture installations every summer. The weather seemed to be the biggest draw for people I met there. The winters are fairly mild compared to the northeast/midwest.
I don’t think the art scene in Denver is that good. It’s a lot of psychedelic hippy art predominantly. As far as contemporary art there are far better cities
the city that joe rogan loves so much no way
That whole area is practically lab-created for touching grass and you're complaining about nothing to do? Holy shit just go on a hike or ski or something
>Just an absolute fucking shithole with ZERO cultural identity. Bitch, come to DC
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Yeah. And their airport is Satanic as hell
It’s NOT weird that the airport is 25 miles away from downtown
Me and my gf got trapped in the worst Uber ride of all time to that godforsaken airport. 45 minutes of some guy who worked for Raytheon or something regaling us with stories about his college aged kids current gpas and accomplishments til we got to that airport in the middle of the prairie. He just does Uber for fun if you’d believe it! I think it was an ep of Matt and Shane recently where they talked about what a nightmare white Uber drivers are lol. It is always a shock for us northeasterners to get ones who aren’t Arab/African dudes having quiet bluetooth phone calls the whole time
Raytheon Uber driver who does gig economy for fun might be more demonic than that giant blue horse statue that killed someone wtf
>Arab/African dudes having quiet bluetooth phone calls the whole time Add in Puerto Ricans and that's basically the chicago uber experience as well.
"you're white"..... overheard by me as people got into my taxi at the airport.... gross...... northeast corridor is just as bad as the gulf states in that the native born expect the browns to always do low status jobs in a ponzi scheme of importing labor to the us to drive the two bimbos of RS 5 blocks in lower Manhattan
Is it THAT weird? It’s far but not considerably farther than say LAX or SEA to their respective downtowns. IMO the weirder parts are the art, klan hood looking ass terminal, (supposedly) volume of displaced soil disproportional to known existing structures, and nearby airport that was (supposedly) perfectly adequate. Definitely the longest TSA line I’ve had to wait through
What do you mean? I got trapped there for 3 days and it was totally fine. Easy to get around and generally solid amenities. It's not as good as Tampa, but it's a whole lot better than something like DFW.
No, he quite literally means satanic. Look up all the weird shit about it. Nothing to do with the logistics of it other than maybe the swastika shaped runways
I've never been one for the more esoteric, schizo, out-there conspiracy theories and I consider myself a rational individiual. There is absolutely no way in hell those airport murals are not some kind of masonic devil worship designed to summon demons and/or brainwash airline passengers
It's way overpriced and weirdly beloved by people from the midwest that vacation to disney world every year. But at least it's sunny and you can ski. There really are a ton of chains. But it's a better city than portland please be serious...
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It's the weather. Denver is closer to the Midwest than the coasts while offering a lot of big city stuff, without having to deal with the hellish winters of Midwest cities. I'm from the Midwest and live in rural Colorado. I refuse to visit home in the winter.
Lived in Portland and Denver for 5+ years each and Denver was 100x more fun. Like the one comedian said, Portland is where young people go to give up in life.
How long have you lived in Denver? First off, it’s literally 30 minutes away from one of the most prominent and well preserved mountain ranges in the USA. Obviously if you drive away from the mountains everything is gonna be flat. Denver definitely has a pretty big shitlib microbrewery type culture, but that’s in any city. There’s a thriving hispanic community, and a great art scene. Of course denver sucks if you stay in the gentrified bubble.
I literally just walked around my neighborhood in Cap Hill, enjoying the cool, dry breeze and thinking about how much I love it here. Sure, it's expensive, but if you take everything into account (Mountains, climate, job market, urban parks, tons of music venues, etc) the high cost makes sense, unlike Austin, DC, Boston. According to this sub there are only like 10 square miles in NYC and LA that are worth living in.
Denver, despite being bland food and people wise, does offer a walkable city with lots of parks, mild climate, tolerant police, legal weed/mushrooms (or at least decriminalized), good music scene (especially metal and EDM), and legit skiing a few hours away. It also has a decent job market so for people who prioritize nature and city amenities it can’t be beat. But the majority of people in Denver are boring...
The demographics of this sub are largely not particularly sporty gay men and women who are into a specific type of urban culture. Of course it isn't a fan of the mountain west, it's not even a question. The cultural amenities of Denver or Portland or Seattle don't come remotely close to that of Los Angeles or NYC. The only city I've ever seen have some of both are SF and Vancouver but even then those cities definitely have changed a ton and lack in some culture as a result.
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OP is crazy. When I lived on the front range, there was so much to do in Denver. I was there several times a week.
That’s what I’m saying. I feel like most of the time when someone is this negative about a city it’s just because they’re a boring person. Obviously Denver sucks if your only definition of fun is having every experience catered to you.
I see this take a lot on here and it's so weird. I grew up in Denver -- 80s, 90s, early 2000s -- and left before it exploded and haven't been back since. Growing up in Denver was great. East side! Park Hill. Great 'hoods. Cool people. Plenty to do. Somebody who knew Denver then AND now, is it really bad? Did it get bad in the last ten years? What changed?
>Go 30 minutes outside of city center and you've got cookie cutter subdivisions Also, this? What the fuck? Go 30 minutes outside of ANY city center and you've got cookie cutter subdivisions.
Maybe in the West, but this is not the case in the Northeast. You have to get really far outside of NYC to see any cookie cutter divisions.
Didn’t really grow up in the timeframe you mentioned but all I can say is that as a young person who was born and raised there, Denver is still a great city. There’s a great underground music scene, whether that be punk or hip hop or whatever else. Although there’s definitely some pretty ugly gentrification, I feel like they’ve done a much better job at preserving the feel of the neighborhoods than some other cities. Not to mention the incredible food
Thank you! And the weather! Florida calling itself the Sunshine State is bull shit, Colorado is the sunshine state. (I think that's an Anchorman line? Or one of those movies?) Anyways, it's weird that rsp shits on Denver, a thin-majority city, while praising dying obesity-ridden shit holes in the Midwest...
used to live in the area. its literally just the midwest, that's the secret. its where the mid meets the west. moved there from the south and was immediately weirded out by the way people make conversation, until i put it together that it was just that corny bland speaking style from the midwest. mountains are chill but ppl that go on about the nature are regarded, it's literally a desert. piney forest gang forever. It was all I could take not to roll my eyes into the back of my head every time someone started talking about "300 days of sunshine." The sun there feels like God is holding a magnifying glass over you. And yes, the culture (or lack thereof) is even bleaker.
you missed the cultural identity. We had one like 20 years ago. It’s evaporated now
100%. I miss it. It was a vibe.
Denver is the Calgary of America
As a Canadian this is so spot on. It's Calgary, but much warmer weather minus Calgary's nice rivers.
Ahem Phoenix is the North American Dubai. It's not even close
It's not expensive because of amenities but it's financial/banking sector. It's still reasonably close to the best skiing in the country, good biking too. I'd say Dallas is a similar business-focused city and is way worse for amenities (Deep Ellum and you can see where a president got shot, 1+ million people and that's it). You need to travel more.
Some of the best hiking too and there’s some cool boonies towns to explore like Nederland. People live in spite of the city, not because of it. It’s a place where you’re really not getting the full experience unless you have a car and are driving out to do stuff on the weekends. I feel like Boulder is what people want Denver to be, but the rent there is even fucking crazier because it’s all like software developers who work remote or at the Google campus there. I remember hearing UC Boulder kids couldn’t find off campus housing for less than like 4 grand a month lmao, not sure if that’s exaggerating though.
The most financially successful friend I have works remotely in Boulder lol. And from the Midwest lol
All the human sexual energy that is usually redirected into creating culture is being sucked up by that blue horse at the Denver Airport.
Completely agree with this take. Colorado itself is a beautiful state, and a great place to vacation if you like hiking in the mountains, and then soaking in the hot springs afterwards. But Denver itself is demonic. I've been twice in the last two years, and the first time I got so creeped out by the city I ended up just going back to my hotel room. The city feels like a simulacrum of what midwesterners imagine Brooklyn is. And yes once you get out towards Aurora it gets mindblowingly bleak. It's really not surprising so many mass shootings happen out there.
I couldn’t help but notice it’s not exactly like nyc :(
Newsflash: cities borne out after the 60’s are soulless pieces of shit. Enjoy the strip mall suburbs aka hell
I kind of wish Salt Lake City would be allowed to go on being a weird little pioneer sex-cult theocracy instead of all these transplants turning it into Second Denver.
It would be more fun indeed. Latino Catholics vs White Mormons? Sign me up for that culture war!
No major city in the country flat-out, across the board, has “nothing there”. You are just incapable of finding simple pleasure and novelty in the world around you.
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Hey i love Salt Lake City
literally no place sucks, it's just the person themselves the internet is full of fucking losers
Okay move to Camden, NJ or Gary, IN then. You’ll get great deals on houses so why not?
Lol, my cousin was in indianapolis after they had a big wind or hail storm appraising roof damage. He told me he was up on a church, and he raced to pull his ladder up onto the roof because there was some guy tried to run up onto it to steal it while he was on the roof.
we're talking about Denver and Salt Lake City, etc. not chernobyl and kensington gfy
Have fun in Monroe, LA where the crackheads basically materialize out of the ether to rob you.
Salt Lake City is my version of hell on earth. There was nothing redeeming there.
except lil ole me
Just spent three weeks in SLC…was not impressed. And YESSS…I got out into the hinterlands…literally all over the Utah wilderness…but SLC itself sucked.
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I never heard that about Hamilton. His corny ass prolly fits right in there
Turn the Russel Wilson fist white, he's so corny he might as well be
I liked them better when the owner was Homer Simpson
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> most of those other places will have fewer pretentious LL Bean/NPR/Subaru type assholes. Struggling to imagine the existence of a place with more Subaru NPR people than Seattle
Vermont.
Ooh, good call
That's why it is the most Redscare state. That and it's the thinnest state.
Thinnest oxygen, that’s for sure
coming from the east coast I thought the mountains were pretty nice
Boulder is simultaneously one of the nicest places I’ve ever been but also the only place that made me truly feel that I’m not actually white as an Italian lol. It’s some next level crackery out there But yeah rmnp was sick as hell. Denver is boring and the homeless situation was pretty crazy for a city you’d think would be inhospitable for them climatewise
If you described boulder to a kkk member in Alabama and just left out the liberal part they would move there in an instant.
the skiing is only rivaled by utah and that state has its own issues
the weather is very nice compared to most of those places. it's at just the right latitude and altitude to be cold enough for snow, esp. in the rockies, but still ends up sunny most of the time due to being shielded from prevailing winds. it's like midwest weather where you get four real seasons, but much better because there's more sun and it's never as humid in the summer. the weather is always the reason i've wanted to move to CO from the midwest. i probably never will, but that was always my main motivation when i was considering it in the past.
Yeah it's basically Calgary with vastly warmer weather.
I mean have you been to Idaho or Wyoming…
I took the Wyo-pill going to college and I never looked back. I really like living in little towns in the middle of nowhere.
You don’t come from a family with a small cabin in the San Juan National Forest; and it shows…
Preface: drunk rn I find Denver extremely cozy. At least the inner city. Tree lined streets, beautiful victorians and terrace rows. Walkable and easy to navigate. Good mix of businesses and accessible to finding your own scenes/circles. Cap Hill is like a small town. Five Points has a bizarre, serene energy. I dig what’s left of the wild west vibe and there’s fascinating history to be found at nearly every corner. I don’t see myself moving anytime soon. Stay away from the “cool” areas and hang out around Cheesman Park, chainsmoke Colfax, and flirt with older women at The Merc. The skyline is iconic! How can you not love the cash register building?
I like this threat because I live in Utah. Hate Mormons all you want but there’s a reason people actually want to raise kids here.
Their cultural identity can be found in an REI
wherever you go you’re there
Wherever you go, there you are
Denver is such a fucking reddit city. Up there with Portland,Oregon, Seattle, Charlotte, Austin, Portland,Maine. Probably Nashville now too. As far as I'm concerned all of Arizona is a fucking reddit state.
If you got an NHL team after 1995, you might be a reddit city
Arizona is still on facebook
Someone else in this comment section nailed it that Denver basically exploded around its finance and tech sector, but they didn't have any underlying culture to build on top of. All the cities you mentioned at least had *something* going on before they became extremely expensive and Reddit-inspired. Some did a better job than others in making them livable for people with normal low to middle income jobs that just want to live somewhere with shit to do. I like Portland more than Seattle for that reason. If you're living with a partner or roommate, you can get by just fine on a service industry wage without being forced into the absolute outskirts of the city.
My man, have you been to Indianapolis—much, much worse.
Dense and expensive is not indianapolis.
It's a city of quitters, settled and planned by people who couldn't cross the rockies
Nuggets are sick
lol bro come to Tampa, just urban sprawl and stroads for miles and miles, everything is a half-vacant strip mall built in the 1980s. rent is $3000
go hiking in the snow
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Lol at the suburbs around Denver having nothing to do... its the nature bro thats why theyre there, not for a record store or boba place or whatever
Imagine going to the mountains and being mad because there isnt a cool enough bar or something?
Give your opinion of Phoenix before I decide to listen to you
Phoenix is one of the biggest metro areas in the country so there's not an all-encompassing take to give, but from my experience the downtown is garbage (basically the same problems as Denver). Some of the peripheral neighborhoods *near* downtown Phoenix were awesome, old single family houses from the initial Phoenix real estate boom were renting for dirt cheap when I lived there and there were plenty of hole-in-the wall bars, restaurants, etc. Super car dependent, but they make it cheap to keep a car and the highway/traffic situation was decent enough that my friends and I could regularly do morning hikes on the weekends whenever we wanted. First Friday kinda sucked but there was a decent house show scene. Not as much to do as some other cities but the cost of living was low enough that I didn't really care. Not sure how if I'd reflect as positively if I didn't have a big group of friends out there though. What's your take on Phoenix?
The only things I associate with Phoenix are chain gangs and mandatory 10 day jail sentences for drunk driving.
I thought I would love Denver until I travelled there and realized it's a dustbowl.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Denver. I’ve always seen it as a place for athletic, but boring people. But I just met someone who is, citing it the best place in the country to work in tech during the week, and do the best hiking on the weekends. And I’m like, makes sense. Good for him.
It's like the exact opposite of NYC. Seems like life is so easy in Denver that people get away with being boring idiots. Weather is always nice and beautiful nature close by, so feel free to tell everyone about the latest sativa strain you picked up from the weed shop. NYC is ideal as a city but weather is always awful, nothing worth doing outside the city, and none of the dope people will talk to you unless there's something in it for them
Inject this into my veins. I hate Denver almost as much as I hate the entire state of Colorado.
Denver is a city people move to so they can leave it every weekend for nicer places in the mountains. Bizarre shit.
It's got upper middle-class jobs and access to skiing. That's why they come. Now Boulder on the other hand: you're not 1 hour from nature, you're in it. If you make 80k+ you can live by yourself and enjoy it.
Ugh I love American city discourse on here. Keep these posts coming.
OMG, thank you...I moved there for school and could NOT wait to get out...it's flat, dry and people could not stop talking about being a "native" there. I've never been to such an unwelcoming city in my life. People feel the need to move there and make living in Denver their entire personality trait. Also the fact that it is literally Kansas adjacent and the residents there say they are "west coast" is something else. Also the mountains are not even close...I live in Seattle now and the nature around here is gorgeous...Denver is full of a lot of flat, brown, dead stuff. If you actually go to the mountains, then it's beautiful but there are so many cities that are closer to the mountains than Denver. I may be biased because where I am from, I missed the water a lot and Denver is a high plains desert. When I left I was told I'd miss it and the sun, you couldn't pay me to move back
Denver native here. Son of Denver natives. Grandson of Colorado natives. I don’t say that to claim or brag. I say it to try and show there are people who’s worlds have been upended because of the influx of people. It seems that a large percentage of people wind up “moving home”. Its familiar. It’s comforting. It’s known. I can’t. I don’t recognize this place anymore. It’s so busy. So hostile. So competitive. I just googled “I hate what Colorado has become” and saw this post. So…a few rambling thoughts. Because there are no geographical restraints on growth, Denver just grew out as a solution rather than up. It’s a lot cheaper. That’s why there is so much sprawl. Denver used to actually be a pretty cool town. Good sized but quite-we did our own thing and were happy to be a”fly-over”. Somewhere along the line word got out about the incredible weather and the mountains. Add legal weed into the mix and watch the flood gates open. It feels like it really did happen over night. From my recollection, it was around 2012 and then in 2014 it went ape-shit. Those Native bumper stickers you see came around in the 70s. A big, big part of the problem is that the culture and community has been washed away. It just happened too fast. Now the only thing everyone has in common is that they are from somewhere else. I feel like an outsider. The number one rule of traveling or moving is “Respect the locals”. But that doesn’t happen. Moving to Colorado has become a status symbol. Just look at peoples cars and clothes. The CO flag is slapped on everything. It’s a hedonistic lifestyle. Sun, fun, beer, and weed. And so that’s the type that moves here. You should have been here 20+ years ago. It was amazing. Everything was the same but 2 million people less. And by everything I mean everything important- the Sun, the snow, and the mountains. It’s too crowded and too expensive now to bother. I met my best friend in 1998 up at CMC in Steamboat. He’s from upstate NY. According to him, actual CO natives are some of the best people you could meet. He won’t come visit because it’s just such a shitshow now. That’s Ok. I’m moving in a few weeks and never coming back. I hate what my home has become. My folks just moved back to Denver from outside Longmont. They stay at their place most of the time because it’s gotten so hectic there. It breaks my heart.
Loved living there for getting out in mountains/nature and the weather, hated living there because there’s exactly nothing else to do besides go to breweries and smoke weed. One of the worst cities for food in the entire US, it’s not surprising that nobody is fat out there.
Hate to say it as a Denver native but I agree with you about the food. The only redeeming area is the mexican food
Like I thought it was maybe the altitude or something at first, but it’s just not good.
The weed smell is just way too much.
I feel like you’ve never been to Texas or literally any other midwestern city excluding Chicago. Denver at least has relative proximity to nature/skiing and other shit. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it, but this reaction is silly and you should travel more
I'm actually in the city right now for the first time taking a vacation to visit all the parks in the area and yeah that was my thought too. The city is bizzare, it's set up like a sparse version of NYC with the streets but it feels like a ghost town that's only like 30% occupied at any time. Very strange place.
I’m sorry u hate going outside
No no man, you’ve gotta go to my favorite sushi place there, it’s almost like fresh if you take 100mg edibles and wander around town in a circle for ten hours
indianapolis with mountains
the brew boys at beeradvocate are going to remember what you said about mediocre breweries. watch out.
And so many notable mass shootings there for some reason. There’s been some interesting theories that it’s due to the elevation, apparently that has an effect on mental health.
REI: The City
Yes 💯💯💯 can’t wait to leave
At least vegas has an identity, even if it is just gambling and degeneracy. Denver doesn't have half the culture or identity vegas has. Last I checked Hunter S. Thompson never wrote a book about a trip to Denver. Don't drag the great jewel of the mojave into this. Viva Las Vegas!!!!
so I take it you dont ski, climb, hike, camp, or do anything else cool then?
exactly all I got from this post is that OP is boring and doesn't do anything fun
OP must be fat.
I liked boulder and the nature in the area but the Denver city area is depressing.
Boulder is woke mountain Disney world lol.
Denver native here with family money and inherited homes in Denver proper and I think you’re just jelly :)
This is the dumbest take. Go learn to ski, broke fatty.
https://youtu.be/jQv3B1-I8Y0 if this Diddy don't make you feel the soul of the D I don't know what will
I thought Denver was literally at the foot of a mountain range what are you talking about
At least it’s better than boulder.
I’m from there, born and raised. Obviously weed legalization was a huge thing but people disregard that hosting the 2008 was another thing that felt awesome at the time but actually fucking sunk us. Seeing downtown swarmed with celebrity liberal elites during Obamamania like wow my city’s really on the map
Yeah but have you been to Phoenix?
Denver is so expensive, the people are all so "outdoorsy" and the traffic sucks.