Living in La Plata County requires several trade-offs from its residents. Air travel is somewhat limited and costly, as is housing. Professional opportunities run a narrower spectrum than in larger cities, and salaries are similarly affected. The closest interstate highway is hours away, as is the nearest escalator. In exchange, though, La Plata County offers a close-knit environment where families from all walks of life, backgrounds and economic brackets intermix at school, in sports, at community events – the net result of which is an upward boost for the area’s young people.
A study from a group of Harvard economists confirms what is anecdotally clear to many who live here: La Plata County is a wonderful place to grow up, and doing so gives our youngsters a chance to close earning and achievement gaps later in life.
The Equality of Opportunity Project study released in April examined how where children live affects their mobility over time, and found that “every year of exposure to a better environment improves a child’s chances of success.” In La Plata County’s case, that long-term success is measurable: It is in the top 20 percent of counties for upward mobility, meaning that kids from low-income families here earn 12 percent more by the time they are 26 than their counterparts from communities with less to offer. There are five key factors at play, and each is relevant here: less segregation by income and race, lower levels of income inequality, better schools, lower rates of violent crime and more two-parent households.
Those factors percolate into many aspects of life in La Plata County, and are reinforced by investments the community makes. The high-quality schools – district, charter and private – offer children from families across the economic spectrum seats side-by-side in classrooms. Those same students participate in sports and activities together through the Durango Parks and Recreation Department’s many programs that are accessible to all youths and adults as well. These students and their families use the trails, parks and open spaces – city-provided and the many surrounding Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands with ample and wide-ranging recreational opportunities.
Peer groups for kids and parents are diverse, brought together by the cross-cutting appeal of life in La Plata County. A child’s parents’ friend circle is likely to comprise physicians, restaurant servers, oil and gas workers, engineers, farmers, real estate agents, attorneys and bartenders – and some people have more than one of these vocations. This exposure, and that gained from the correlative friendships that children make with kids of similarly diverse backgrounds, provides La Plata County young people with a broad, supportive foundation upon which to build successful lives – a trend borne out by the Equality of Opportunity study.
That is not to say that life is idyllic for all who live in La Plata County. While income inequality is not as drastic here as in other communities, it does exist. Finding employment at a livable wage is challenging, as is access to affordable housing. While violent crimes are relatively low here, they do exist, and while two-parent households are in higher number in La Plata County, there are many single-parent families. But the integrated, close-knit nature of life in La Plata County provides an underpinning of support for the young people who grow up here. That they are, as a cohort, better equipped than peers elsewhere to transcend their roots is not surprising and speaks well for the community’s values and priorities.
It also points to where to invest to further improve life in La Plata County.
