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I'm not american so I don't understand how a state like Colorado is so relatively cool/progressive these days based on its geographic location compared to the o

• NDizzle 3y ago
  Rich city people like skiing.
  • dllthomas 3y ago
    I'm not sure that explains the difference between Colorado and Wyoming.
    • PaulHoule 3y ago
      Boulder and Denver have a diverse white-collar economy for one thing.
    • odessacubbage 3y ago
      there is a significant difference between skiing at vail and skiing at jackson hole. we have the tourist-friendly mountains basically.
      • dllthomas 3y ago
        Even granting that (and that it's natural rather than path dependent) it seems a weak explanation for the cultural differences.
• atkailash 3y ago
  [dead]
• leroy-is-here 3y ago
  A lot of people in Colorado go outside on a regular basis to hike or ski or ride bikes.
• soared 3y ago
  Historically progressive compared to its neighbors in the past few decades, huge influx of money and progressive voters recently, all conservative voters have havens in Colorado Springs and some mountain towns so they don’t heavily mobilize in blue areas. CO gets buckets of tourism money, industry (tech, space, research), and likely secondary affects from having a massive airport. Voted in a governor who started and sold tech startups, is gay, and good at moving through legislation. Prior to California/etc diaspora it was diaspora from the surround states. Wyoming/Kansas/etc all have more conservative values so the progressive young adults often moved to CO. (Pure speculation)
  • bediger4000 3y ago
    Old School aerospace company Glenn L. Nartin put in a factory circa 1955, which started drawing non-farm, educated population. I think Colorado's liberal base started then.
    • gshubert17 3y ago
      Yes, Martin is now Lockheed-Martin. Other tech companies included IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Level3, EchoStar, DISH, and others.
      • ghaff 3y ago
        Way back when I was in grad school there was a fair bit of "tech" (a lot of it storage hardware) in the greater Denver area and the computer companies definitely pitched the skiing and general outdoor lifestyle as a reason to come work for them there.
      • saryant 3y ago
        The 36 corridor between Denver and Boulder was home to a ton of storage tech startups in the first dotcom boom. There’s still a street called “Tape Drive”.
        • lygaret 3y ago
• ericholscher 3y ago
  It’s the closest real mountains to the east coast, so it catches all the outdoorsy & liberal types that want to move west but stay connected back east.
  • monocasa 3y ago
    Eh, it's far enough west that you're not really connected to the east any different than if you had moved all the way to the west coast. Driving from Denver to Atlanta for instance is over 20 hours of driving. It's more to New York, Boston, or DC. Piratically, you just fly if you go back to the east coast for some reason, just like if you were on the west coast.
• anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  The population is centered around decently sized cities: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/CO#map https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/CO#map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Colo... And it's only fairly recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators_from_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators... When you have a state like Utah next door it might pull a large portion of the religiously Republican. I don't live in, or near, Colorado though.
• seanalltogether 3y ago
  Colorado used to be (maybe still is) known for the high percentage of "gun toting liberals". There has been a big focus on technology to drive growth along the front range, so many of the people moving in to the state did so to chase jobs that required higher education levels.
• monocasa 3y ago
  It's striated, but the Denver metro more or less outweighs the rest of the state, and it hasn't been gerrymandered to shit. For instance, Lauren Boebert is also from Colorado, just not from Denver. But on top of that, a good chunk of the republicans are honest to god libertarians and can be reasoned with (though that doesn't always include those they elect, like Boebert).
  • mikea1 3y ago
    > good chunk of the republicans are honest to god libertarians This is key: Colorado has far more libertarian-conservatives than social-conservatives. It comes from the Western ideal of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Libertarians are "classical liberals" and value individualism, so they do not push for government-sponsored restrictions. The conservatives in many other states are socially-conservative and legislate to preserve their social values and cozy business interests.
    • the_only_law 3y ago
      > it comes from the Western ideal of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." I’m sure that was a great line of thought when the government was just giving away land to people.
      • pavlov 3y ago
        More precisely giving away native land to white people.
    • iudqnolq 3y ago
      There's certainly a libertarian vibe, but I wouldn't say it's far more than the standard Republican party stuff. In Boebert country you'll see plenty of less philosophical politics. "I identify as non-bidenary" stickers, yard signs about how Biden enjoys anal sex with illegal immigrants, that kind of thing. Colorado polling suggests two thirds of Republicans and a third of "Independents" approved of the Dobbs decision restricting abortion. Half of Republicans and a third of "Independents" believe Biden didn't win the election. Source: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/aprl/sites/default/files/attached-files/2022_cpc_topline.pdf https://www.colorado.edu/lab/aprl/sites/default/files/attach...
• liquidise 3y ago
  The younger people (< 45) in CO are largely transplants. Many moved because of the outdoor life, pot legalization and because they visit friends and enjoy the culture. I think that younger influence plays a big role offsetting the traditionally conservative farmland. Pedantically, though, the votes haven't been strictly progressive, more lowercase-L libertarian. Often the state votes to increase freedoms instead of traditional progressive/conservative lines. Overall, i think the CO population is more drug-friendly than the average liberal US voting pool. Denver feels relatively moderate, politically, as we have so many influences from where people came from (east coast, california, texas). We have one of the most liberal (Boulder) and conservative (CO Springs) cities in the US. The things that the population collectively agrees upon is often the freedom-y bits.
• mason55 3y ago
  The short answer is basically "cities are liberal" and Colorado has a large city unlike the rest of the surrounding states. The next question is why Denver is in Colorado and not anywhere else? The answer is that, from the beginning, Colorado had some geographic advantages and the leaders of the state pushed for intentional growth. As the state grew based on geographic advantages, the state was able to push for government contracts to get things like the National Energy Research Lab. The gov't contracts drew an educated population which drove the creation of a pretty big university system, and it all became self-reinforcing. The surrounding states just don't have a big city like Denver. Utah is an exception with SLC but Utah has its own idiosyncrasies.
  • dfxm12 3y ago
    There's more to Colorado than "cities are liberal". The CO general assembly has big Dem majorities in the house and senate, along with a Dem Governor. This means they can legislate stuff which has voter impact but might not look sexy on the campaign trail. They can pass laws without having to worry about conservative/reactionary Republicans (or even blue dog Dems) saying no for no other reason than "just because". They wouldn't have such a big statewide majority if it was just because of Denver. That case is more like PA, which has 2 big cities, and while it has a Dem governor, it has a republican majority in the state senate and no majority in the house. This microcosm of Capitol Hill leads to very little legislation being passed, even for stuff the voters want & stuff that would really benefit the state.
    • mason55 3y ago
      > There's more to Colorado than "cities are liberal". The CO general assembly has big Dem majorities in the house and senate, along with a Dem Governor. Sure, but the Dem majorities are exactly because the cities are liberal. https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/map-of-colorado-state-senate-districts https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m... https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/map-of-colorado-state-house-of-representative-districts https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m... Outside of the cities, the state is almost as red as Wyoming. Pennsylvania looks very similar to Colorado actually: https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/map-of-pennsylvania-state-house-of-representative-districts https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m... You raise an interesting point though. My guess for PA is that their population is spread out enough that you can create more credible districts in the rural areas because almost all the land is livable whereas Colorado sort of self-gerrymanders because despite its size there are decent chunks of the state that are unlivable (plus all the national parks, etc). It's like that old xkcd comic about heat maps - a map of democratic voters is basically just population density heat map. The interesting question isn't "why is Colorado blue?" - we know the answer, it's because of the cities. The real interesting question is "why did Colorado develop so many cities when no one else in the intermountain west did?"
• cschneid 3y ago
  Some less than fully formed thoughts, but what I think: I'd say Colorado is (at least) 3 different states in a trenchcoat. 1. Cities mostly clustered together. The state is sort of weird geographically. Giant open plains to the east, and big ass scary mountains to the west. Lots of cities formed along the boundary between them, forming what is now called the 'Front Range'. Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Longmont are all along here. Most of the population lives along this long corridor. 2. Rural farms and ranches. Both on the plains, and in the mountains, and the Western Slope (an area sorta coming out of the mountains towards the far west end of the state). This is fairly conservative, matching what other rural people in neighboring states. Include poorer mountain towns here, which are often farming focused. 3. Rich mountain towns. Skiing, or other attractions. Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs, etc. The areas are very attractive due to natural beauty, but typically have geographical or weather reasons they can't really grow huge. That leaves richer and richer people driving out others. Many of these end up with a 'theme park' feel to them. Rich people have a condo that gets used a few times a year, and rented out another few times, but no real residency. Generally though, the common theme through all of those is a love of the outdoors. Even those who want to drill aggressively for oil are out hunting and 4-wheeling. Granola hippies are out hiking, skiing, and backpacking. But practically everybody has at least a passing interest in the outdoors. As for the comparison to other states that have swung super-conservative in recent years, I'd guess that it's to some degree that a more liberal western state had to exist somewhere, and it ended up as Colorado. If you want to move west, smoke pot and ski or hike all day, you go where others are already doing that. Other than accidents of history, I don't see any reason Wyoming couldn't have been shifted that direction. Colorado and Wyoming are very similar states geographically, and early-on economically. We both have ranching, farming, oil, mining. It'd be interesting to really dig in and figure out why one went one way, and the other a different way.
  • 1659447091 3y ago
    > It'd be interesting to really dig in and figure out why one went one way, and the other a different way. My guess would be airport access. Denver is a major hub and getting non-stops to many other cities is conveniently easy. Wyoming doesn't have the same ease of access
• Dave_Rosenthal 3y ago
  I moved to CO from the bay area a couple of years ago. I couldn't tell you what created the initial imbalance, but it feels like at this point what sustains it is a simple positive-feedback loop. To generalize, when relatively liberal, educated, wealthy people from the coasts want a different lifestyle (work-life balance, better outdoor access, less density, etc.) they move to CO because that where others like them have moved, which further bolsters that reputation. From what I know, it's kind of like Austin in that the its reputation as a progressive outpost in TX just attracts more of those people. How places evolve seem like a kind of an interesting study in how branding can become reality.
  • zmj 3y ago
    I'm a data point towards that feedback loop. My partner and I moved to Colorado from a Southern state 4 years ago. We wanted to live somewhere in the West, and chose Colorado because: * Mountains! * Great legal protections for gender minorities, especially Boulder County * Good tech scene to job hunt locally We weren't part of that initial shift, but we're definitely part of the acceleration. We've met plenty of other transplants with similar stories.
• Floegipoky 3y ago
  I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this- they were one of the first states to legalize mj. I think this very quickly drove a huge influx of younger, more open-minded people and a lot of cultural change around the metro areas, especially Denver and Boulder.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    The dynamics being discussed existed long before that. In any case, I'm pretty sure that very few people moved to Colorado specifically because of mj legalization as opposed to the other forces that made mj legalization possible there.
• isthisfoss 3y ago
  Culturally Colorado has been a haven for individualism and is the birthplace of the Libertarian party. Lots of do it yourselfers from the history of mining and cowboy heritage. It has always been a true purple state due to Denver being progressive and Colorado Springs being conservative. But now with every Californian moving here because it’s cheaper, costs have gotten out of control and they are already voting for the very same policies that ruined the state they fled. It’s not “cool” at all.
• bigbillheck 3y ago
  It wasn't that long ago that they did this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Colorado_Amendment_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Colorado_Amendment_2
• foxyv 3y ago
  In addition to what other comments have said. The huge proliferation of national parks and mind blowing beauty tends to attract people who are into those things. This also reduces the amount of private land, making rural living more difficult and expensive. Conservatives tend to live in rural areas which weighs the political landscape towards liberals when 43% of the land is publicly owned. Compare that to Texas which is 4.2% publicly owned.
• NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Outside of culture war issues, most all of the 50 states are pretty much the same politically. You'll see backwards policy on tech (and other things) just as much in California as you would Mississippi.
• odessacubbage 3y ago
  colorado is a resort, most of those other states live or die by resource extraction. if we didn't happen have an amenity that was especially attractive to rich liberals (and geographically discriminating against the poor & working class) then co's politics would be no different than arizona's.