There are a lot of friendly small towns just east of the Rockies, an area called The Front Range, in CO.
Just look at a map and follow I-25 to find them.
Same is true on The Western Slope, which is the far west of CO.
Yes, Balding_Eagle, there are and we're living in one of them.
I love living here.
Chickensoup, you have email.
The growth the past decade on the Front Range is just staggering. It’s almost non-stop urbanization from Ft. Collins down to Colorado Springs. Miles and miles and miles of development. I, personally, don’t find the area as attractive as it used to be. But the population of the country has zoomed from 150 million when I was a kid to 330 million today, so most places that were nice 30 or 40 years ago are overcrowded now.