Texans, Californians and Colorado

Above, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

During our morning breakfast conversation today, it was mentioned migration to the state of Colorado is dominated by people from California and Texas.

I knew that many Californians have moved to Colorado, but I hadn't heard of the Texan migration. So I looked it up.

Sure enough, Californians and Texans are leading the migrations into Colorado.

According to a 2016 article in the Durango Herald:

The census bureau also published national, regional and state-level data on American movers collected from 2015. Statewide, 33,487 moved to Colorado from abroad last year, 29,029 from California, 25,268 from Texas, 11,398 from Illinois and 10,254 from Arizona. In the previous two years, people moved from California and Texas in almost equal numbers. 

Also in 2015, 21,157 left Colorado for California, and 22,587 migrated to Texas.

Granted, not all Californians moving to Colorado aren't all liberals and, conversely, not all Texans moving to Colorado aren't all conservatives. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that liberals are in the majority of California migrants and conservatives are in the majority of Texas migrants. This, if it is the case, could lead to an interesting state clash of political philosophies and values.

I noticed that native Colorado residents seem to dislike Californians. Many of them feel that the California transplants flee California due to high costs and come to Colorado and try to impose California policies on Coloradoans. One cry is, "Don't Californicate Coloraldo!"

This is something that may be interesting to watch in the future.