It seems the wide, open spaces of the West continue to attract settlers just as they have since the nation’s westward expansion began in the early 1800s.
A study by the Center for Western Priorities found that today’s senior retirees are three times as likely to relocate to regions of the West that have ample national forests, parks, monuments or conservation easements – protected land as it were.
Sue Agranoff, a Durango resident, was an early convert.
“My (then) husband and I traveled around the country in a motorhome for three years,” said Agranoff, 61. “We visited as many national parks as possible.
“I fell in love with the desert,” she said. ”I want to be near enough to enjoy outdoor stuff but still have some cultural activities.”
Durango fit the bill, said Agranoff, who was raised in Philadelphia and worked for years in Boston as a computer firm project manager. She’s lived for 10 years in Durango, where she’s been associated with Great Old Broads for Wilderness.
“The only thing I miss about Boston is the good fish,” she said. “I hated its gray dreariness.”
Now, she spends three or four days a week outside, with southern Utah and Silverton high on her list of favorite retreats for hiking, canyoneering, snowshoeing and cross country skiing.
Rick Helmick and wife, Tati, made their move even earlier than Agranoff, arriving in 1994 from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, where he owned a restaurant chain and an inn.
“Durango is the gateway to so many acres of open space,” Rick Helmick said. “It’s the perfect place to access the outdoors.”
Durango is the right size, it has energy of a college town, and it’s close to the recreation areas of Utah, Helmick said.
The Helmicks – he’s 63, she’s 65 – ski and have a Jeep to explore the high country. He hunts elk and practices fly fishing. He now sits on the board of the Five Rivers chapter of Trout Unlimited.
Southwest Colorado is typical of the public lands that attract retirees, defined as age 55 and above, said Noah Caldwell with the Center for Western Priorities. The percentage of public land in La Plata, Archuleta, Montezuma, Dolores and San Juan counties far exceeds Colorado’s county average of 8½ percent.
The percentage of what Western Priorities calls protected land in Southwest Colorado counties: San Juan, 28.4; Dolores, 20.1; Montezuma, 18; La Plata, 16.6; and Archuleta, 12.
The total senior migration rate from 2000 to 2010 to Southwest Colorado was 21.9 percent to Archuleta County, 16.5 percent to Montezuma County, 10.7 percent to Dolores County and 6.6 percent to La Plata County. Going in the opposite direction was San Juan County, which registered a 9.9 percent loss of seniors in the same period.
The county average senior migration, statewide, was 3 percent. In other words, for every 100 senior residents in 2010, 3 were newcomers since 2000. (Or, in La Plata, for every 1,000 senior residents here in 2010, 166 had moved here since 2000.)
Roger Zalneraitis, executive director of the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance, isn’t sure that public land alone will attract swarms of people. San Juan County in New Mexico is 80 percent Bureau of Land Management holdings, and there is no rush for seniors to locate there, he said.
Natural beauty of the landscape and community amenities would account for more newcomers, he said.
Investment income from rent, dividends and interest reaching the counties from 2000 to 2010 increased at a greater rate in Southwest Colorado than statewide. By percent, La Plata increased 33.6, San Juan 19.6, Dolores 13.6, Montezuma 11.5 and Archuleta 6.9.
The county average increase statewide was 6.3 percent.
Age-related payments – Social Security and Medicare principally – increased by the following percentages: Dolores, 68.1; La Plata, 64.2; Archuleta, 54.5; Montezuma, 37.3; and San Juan, 15.3.
Statewide, the county average was 50.8 percent.
The nonlabor infusion of money is one of the fastest growing sources of income in the West, Western Priorities said in a release. The money creates jobs – an estimated 297,000 in 10 years – in health services, construction, banking, restaurants and entertainment.
The release cited a recent Colorado College poll of seniors in six Western states that found that retirees want to live near national forests and to enjoy clean air and water.
Counties that want to attract retirees and the revenue they produce would do well to support efforts to protect public lands, the Western Priorities report said.
daler@durangoherald.com
