[Pablo64]

They're slowly doing the same thing to Durango. I was just through there while visiting my mom in Cortez. The libs have completely changed the whole air of the town. It it so pretentious now that you can't wait to leave. They have also driven up the price of real estate over the last 10-15 years to the point that only the very wealthy can afford to actually purchase property. A couple of years ago the median home price in Durango was $318K.

Telluride was the first to go when the Hollyweird crowd started buying up property there. Local people who work in the hotels, restarants, and stores do not live in Telluride - they can't afford to. They commute from Montrose, Ridgeway, Dolores, etc.

I grew up in that area and I had always hoped some day to move back, maybe when the kids are grown and gone, but seeing what's been done to the area has ruined it for me. There really is no going back.

[off-roader]

They're slowly doing the same thing to Durango.

Durango has always had a liberal under current with a liberal arts college in the middle of it.

I suspect that the baby boomer, $1m retirement home growth in Durango will make way for oil shale worker homes soon, as the boomers will feel the results of the credit bust and impossibility to get an ALT-A mortgage for their McMansions.

Local people who work in the hotels, restarants, and stores do not live in Telluride - they can't afford to. They commute from Montrose, Ridgeway, Dolores, etc.

Montrose struck me as an extension of Humbolt County. Nothing but neo-Hippies about. Dolores is beautiful and remote enough to keep the liberal kooks out that can't deal without easy access back to the metro areas. We'd move their in a heart beat but, our kids are achieving at a tough private school in our locale and it is incomprehensible to break that track.

[Thermalseeker]

They're slowly doing the same thing to Durango.

Yeah, I ski at Durango just about every year. Compared to what it was 20 years ago when I first started skiing there, it has changed dramatically. Thankfully, not so much as Breckenridge or Telluride, though. At least with Durango the ski crowds typically aren't as large as say, Breckenridge or Vail. Telluride ski crowds are sort of self-regulated by the challenging terrain.