Inside Colorado’s Extreme Wealth Divide (100 miles apart)

[Western music]

[Peter] Good morning from Southwest Colorado.

a part of the country where things change very fast economically.

So today we got a great road trip starting here

in the ranching outpost of Cortez on the edge of the desert

and going into the high mountains of Telluride.

One of the wealthiest towns in the country

where the median sale price of a home

is currently $4.7 million.

We have Arizona, New Mexico right down there.

The four corners region.

Also Utah right over the mountains.

And this is Cortez. The outskirts of Cortez.

Got some of those old ranching homes out there.

And you can see the scrub brush.

Small junipers.

High desert.

But in just under 100 miles

we're gonna be in completely different worlds.

How you doing, sir?

Maybe do some advertising on these flower planters.

-What are you doing?

-Well this is some of the stuff I build. -Oh nice.

-So these planters. -Yeah.

You were saying off camera you want me to tell the Telluride people…

-…that you're selling planters? -Exactly.

They can find me in Cortez. [laughs]

-Just come here. Okay.

Here's some of the things I do.

Only because I am a musician too.

Oh nice.

-Cool wall guitar. How much are these? -I'm trying to get 20 bucks a piece.

Oh that's totally fair.

-You lived here all your life? -Pretty much.

-This is your place? -Yeah this is my RV.

Well one of the oldest trailer parks in Cortez.

-You keep it tight though. It looks clean. -That's all Ute Reservation.

You got Mesa Verde National Park.

It's a gateway to Rocky Mountains basically.

-How you doing sir? -Good. You?

Good. Do you know Kelly?

-Yeah. -Yeah we know each other.

How's it out here these days?

This town was settled way out in the middle of nothing.

And as you go through it this has always been a Native…

You have two Native tribes that are literally fighting

over the property or the land right below this town.

What I feel and what I've seen, this town has coexisted.

Everybody worked together for a long time.

Everything. They've tried to educate everybody on the same level.

They've tried to bring everything down.

But when you get to the point of where we are today…

Uh-huh.

There's a problem.

I don't know what the problem is.

With the education?

I'm saying with everything, not just education, society, it's everything.

When we were brought up we were taught to respect our elders.

We were taught that there was a moral standard in the world.

A lot of kids at the time when I was a kid,

I'm assuming same as you in your age,

our parents had guns in the back of our car.

I was taught how to use a gun way young.

And was taught how to use it respectfully.

We had gun racks in our pickups when we went to high school.

-You can't do that anymore right?

No you can't. And there's a reason because there's a lot of individuals

when this punk culture and when I say punk culture I don't mean punk rock.

I mean the pranksters that are coming up and going, "It's just a prank."

-It's a lack of respect.

That too. That goes along with it.

Causing trouble. They literally walk into a store

and they belittle somebody just to see their reaction

and then come back with "Oh, it's just a prank."

Isn't that from the parenting though?

It could be. It could be.

-Well what happened is

they changed the law where you couldn't discipline your kid.

When I was growing up, you did something that was out of line,

your dad would bust your a**.

-[Peter] Yeah. I didn't cross my father. -And that was discipline.

If somehow we could get the United States to go back.

And I say this very loosely 'cause I don't want to go into this

bigotry all that other stuff.

-There's a lot of frustration in the country.

-Exactly. If we can go back to the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties,

when people were more involved with helping and being in love

and being tight with each other

and understanding and respecting everybody's

bubble so to speak,

It'd be a lot easier.

But right now everybody's been taught and perceived

that it's okay to be who you are. It makes no difference.

Now we have children that are literally walking down the street

going, "I'm 17 years old."

They don't have it in mind that they could be charged for something

but they're going, "I'm 17 years old. I'm still a kid.

There's nothing you can do about me." from 12 up.

-What about crime here in Cortez? Is there much?

-I can't answer that. -It's getting worse.

But around here it's pretty safe, right?

-Well yeah.

-You watch out for each other? -This is a neighborhood.

You guys all know each other?

You got people like me, if I catch somebody doing something stupid I'll go at them.

Simple as that.

-The one thing I can say about Coloradoans

[Peter] Yeah…

We're a family-orientated state.

They will hurt, they will fight,

but they're all literally family-orientated.

But they have their beliefs they don't want to give up.

And that's Colorado.

We're not trying to change your mind.

We don't want you to go anywhere else.

Come and enjoy but don't bring your problems here.

Coloradoans like people, we just don't like their problems.

-That's my look at it. -Well said.

-[laughter] -That's great.

Don't bring your problems.

All right guys. Thank you. I haven't gotten to town yet. Thank you.

There you can see the San Juans in the distance.

Way out there. Snow-capped peaks.

Some 14,000 footers.

And we're not even in Cortez yet, guys.

Just pulled off

and they were out and about and wanting to talk.

So we got lucky.

All right, so here's what it looks like coming into Cortez.

Your basic strip,

auto dealerships, gas stations,

repair places,

classic Western town.

Nice little downtown here in Cortez.

Roughly 8,500 people in this town.

We're up above 6,000 feet.

Just north of 6,000.

Let's check it out. What's going on?

There we go. A mural on the wall.

Captures the desert landscape outside of town.

The old Spanish Trail circa 1840.

-Morning. -Hi there. How are you?

-Doing well. -Good.

This is a nice place.

-This is a great coffee shop. -Great coffee shop.

-In my opinion it's the best in town. -Okay.

-How's Cortez? -Great.

It's a diamond in the rough.

It's a small town that's growing

but slowly enough that it can manage it.

So it's not changing its identity in a way

where you can't recognize it after a few years.

-Okay.

A lot of homesteading families still live here.

They're still ranching, still farming.

There are a lot of individual entrepreneurs

who are doing niche like truck gardens

or a craft, or an art, or working remotely.

So it's got a real mix of people.

-I just met a guy making planters. -Yeah, there's all kinds of guys.

So this is a part of Colorado

that the everyday person can afford to some degree?

-To some degree. -There are 25,000 people in the county.

About 8,000 here in Cortez.

So you go to Durango, it's a whole different environment.

It's a college town.

And Durango is 25,000 people in itself.

-I'm gonna Telluride. -Yeah, that's a whole different world.

You have these little worlds but they're very unique.

'Cause Telluride used to be a mining town

but now it's kind of a ski-yuppie…

sorta…

-So totally different vibe up there?

And one of the key unique things about Cortez is

it has a Ute reservation to the south

and the Navajo reservation to the west and the south.

And that's all pretty much undeveloped land

so it's not gonna sprawl.

-And you got stuff going on here. -Oh, there's a lot going on.

Nice people. How you doing?

[woman] Doing great.

-I'm making a video of the area. -Nice.

Yeah what are you doing here? Coffee, treats, you have art.

We do. We have a gallery.

This exhibition typically changes every month.

The next one will be a birding festival theme.

-Birding festival? -Yeah.

How's it going? How do you like town?

I like it. It's a lot of fun. I like teaching about the area.

-Did you grow up here?

I came from the Navajo Nation in Arizona.

You're Dine'?

Yeah. I'm half Navajo and half Irish.

How's it living on the res and off the res?

What is your experience?

-Is it like two different worlds? -Very different.

I came from a small community called Naslini.

And grocery stores are like 30 minutes to an hour away

depending on where you want to go.

My school was 30 minutes away when I was in high school