Three cities in Colorado in top ten leading destinations for U.S. brightest

This is about tracking "business formation as well as employment and education in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics"

There was no call to move there, or statement that they are better places. But surely there is something interesting and possibly something to learn about by looking at migrations of people, especially STEM companies and employees.

Personally, as a software engineer in Colorado, I wouldn't trade locations either. But that's because of the things CO has to offer - incredible outdoor recreation, 300 days of sunshine, mild winters, decently competitive salaries, affordable cost of living (on an engineer salary at least), and a culture where people prioritize being well-rounded as individuals instead of allowing work to dominate their lives.

Now, the article's headline "The Smartest Americans Are Heading West" is definitely a generalization, but the migration patterns of people shouldn't be dismissed as simple "money-seeking" - one reason trumping all the others fails to address the complexity innate to big personal decisions like choosing where to live.

What we should be asking is WHY people who fit the "smartness" criteria described in the article are deciding to move West - and then using that information to make informed policy decisions elsewhere.

So in other states, people have to use technologies they dislike, and work with people they dislike? Sounds dreadful.

Boulder County includes almost all of Longmont (a city of ~90k in which I reside) as well as another 100k+ in smaller towns and unincorporated areas; that's all Boulder County, but the majority of that is not considered part of Boulder the city.

Other than that, I'm not sure. Everywhere except Colorado Springs is pretty liberal, which not everyone loves. We've also gotten a lot more homeless people since weed was legalized.

- snow/cold (however its the mildest you will find for a place that gets snow). But snow is snow if you don't like it

-if you are from the coasts (say CA) you may not dig the politics - mainly b/c its not a one sided echo chamber like I find CA to be. I found it to be a decent mix of both major parties. Some may not like this, but personally I found it refreshing.

- no oceans - land locked

- fairly isolated... besides Denver there are not a lot of large cities around to easily travel to. But the counterpoint to this is that DIA is a major airport with lots of flight options.

- public transportation is not really great - you will need a car, especially in the winter. But it is better than many major US cities (US public transportation is pretty awful in general anyway). This is one area I really wish CO would do a bit of forward thinking on building this out quickly now before it becomes CA bay area/LA. It is disconcerting considering that it would be fairly easy to accomplish since most of the populous cities in CO are located in a straight line North/South along the mountain range. Ideal for a high speed train with east/west light rail into the city cores. But, I digress... :)

- depending on the city/area you decide to settle in, pay is not quite where it needs to be to support the quickly rising housing costs. I visit probably 1-2x per year and it is amazing the amount of growth and population surge that has occurred in the past few years. Denver is experiencing a huge boom right now and housing is not keeping up. Outside of Denver or Boulder proper I found salaries to be pretty low compared to cost of living. For instance, I lived in one of the cities mentioned in the article (Fort Collins). Although IMO a great city to live, the IT job market is horrible. It may have a high concentration of intelligent people, but many of those are stuck working at coffee shops just to live in FC. But I guess that says a lot about FC and CO , people are willing to do that to live there...

These are just a few negatives that honestly may not really be negatives to many people. Of course there is no perfect place to live - you can spend your whole life searching for that. I'd list out the positives too, but this post would get really unruly :)

- Not much diversity aside from a large Hispanic population

- Sprawl. Endless repetitive suburbs

- I've heard people from large cities complain about it being boring

- Increasingly crowded

- Hard to make long term friends. Most people seem to stay 3-5 years and then go home or elsewhere

- Food is getting better but not great

- I-70 is a shitshow. Don't be surprised when at some point it takes you 8 hours to get back from skiing on a weekend

- Lack of water, closest ocean is 1000 miles away. No big lakes

Go up into the mountains 15 minutes away and that is another story...

Wildfires in the foothills, but not as points near the west coast.

1) The median household income in Denver CO is $64,000. That's around 77% higher than in Altoona PA. Two locations specifically referenced in the article.

2) The opportunities that pay a lot more than that gap, do not exist to begin with in Altoona. Software, Internet, misc engineer jobs - the locations that people are fleeing from are death zones economically. Denver and Boulder are quasi boom cities; the Altoona's are the exact opposite; that means, over the next ten years your income will very likely expand nicely in those CO locations, whereas you're very unlikely to see meaningful improvement in Altoona.

3) Lifestyle is important for most people and likely that much more so for people willing to move across the country for better opportunities. Boulder and Denver are both incredible by comparison to Altoona PA, when it comes to lifestyle upgrade.

To answer your question, the people desperately fleeing from all those dying economic zones, seeking a vastly superior future, are extremely smart indeed.

The model in which masses of migrating people are too dumb to consider their own interest is less plausible than one in which a snarky internet dismissal might be failing to consider everything.

Let's say you're living in Topeka, making $75,000, you happen to own an average home with a market value of $150,000. Amazon Seattle offers you a job for $130,000. Is taking the job a better deal when the average home in Seattle is $700,000? Your $1,000 Topeka mortgage payment will quadruple consuming 50%+ of your take home pay.