For Better or Worse, Boom Times Are Back in Denver

Despite this column’s other flaws, you must admit you get more news about Denver here than from any other California source.

What do you mean, you don’t care?

Someone in California cares about Colorado, because lots of people have moved there in the last couple of years. Besides, I lived in Denver for nine years until the mid-’80s, just returned from a weekend visit and, doggone it, I love that town.

It was the kind of weekend the Colorado tourism industry dreams of. Temperatures climbed from the 70s to the 80s, and snow from the weekend before ensured that the Rockies still sported their distinguished white peaks. Up above, it was another good year for the ski industry, while down below, the second-year National League baseball team, the Rockies, were averaging 50,000-plus after the first six home games. In a lower downtown area, formerly the prime hangout of the homeless, a new ballpark is being built that will send home runs over the left field wall streaking toward majestic Long’s Peak.

Denver, with a boom-and-bust cycle that’s embedded in the genes of all old Western mining and cow towns, clearly is booming again.

Something about that appeals to Californians. Colorado state demographer Reid Reynolds gave me statistics suggesting that Colorado inherited a net in-migration of about 24,000 Californians during the last half of 1993. That accounts for about one-third of the Colorado growth spurt during 1992-93, he said. As recently as 1989, Colorado lost about 10,000 people in migratory exchanges with California. The trend began reversing during 1992 and Colorado has drawn an ever-increasing number of Californians since.

I joked with Reynolds about the alleged impact of Californians on Colorado and he conceded that the in-migration “has taken on folkloric dimensions” around Denver and the rest of the state. The local stereotype, he said, depicts the Californian as having sold a $500,000 home in the L.A. area and moving to Colorado where they bought a four-bedroom home with a pool and lawn for around $200,000. With all the extra money from their California home sale, the newly arrived immigrants don’t care if they take a pay cut or have driven up the local housing market.

Whether that actually describes the bulk of California immigrants gets lost in the shuffle, Reynolds noted.

But as long as we’re talking about the revitalized Colorado, duty requires that I temper your enthusiasm.

Colorado has been through this before. The current upturn was preceded by a paralyzing regional recession during the late 1980s that Reynolds says was the worst since the Depression. That followed a peak of much growth during the late 1970s and early 1980s as the energy industry descended on the state. As recently as 1983, Colorado had an in-migration boost of 37,000; by 1988, out-migration reached 24,000.

Those are just sterile demographic statistics. The local newspapers also reflected over the weekend what we in Southern California read every day. We sometimes forget that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the mountain.

Examples:

* A Japanese father arrived in Denver on Sunday to visit his son, shot two days earlier during a carjacking. Police said the attack was random and not racially motivated.

* A 14-year-old boy was given the maximum two-year juvenile jail sentence for his involvement in the shooting last Halloween of an 18-year-old who was protecting younger relatives as they trick-or-treated. Another 14-year-old is charged with being the triggerman. The judge in the case expressed shock that the boy she sentenced “feels nothing” over the death of the 18-year-old.

* Parker, a sleepy rural town with a population of 280 in 1981, is debating how fast it should grow. Now with a population of 8,400, planners say, the community about 20 miles south of Denver could top out at 70,000. The Denver Post quoted a resident as saying, “The town is getting crowded with homes that all look alike; the housing developments seem to be pushing in from all sides.”

Well, you get the idea.

The Denver psyche was severely damaged during the late 1980s. Now the city is back with a vengeance, yet I get the feeling from talking to friends and reading the papers that the city is wary of what the latest boom will bring.

Now more than ever, I can’t help but think of Colorado as being California in short pants.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.