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Strategic Assessment of Colorado
Meaningful friction. Expect exposure to either population pressure, blast zones, or natural disaster risk. Consider buying a retreat property.
What does the Strategic Assessment tell us?
Our Strategic Assessment grades tactical survivability of an area. Major population centers, military targets, fallout zones, natural disasters, and border exposure all drive risk — lower exposure means a more defensible position in a crisis.
This is heavily inspired by Joel Skousen's Strategic Relocation book. Highly recommended you checkout the book ($)What does this tell us?
Our Strategic Assessment grades tactical survivability of an area. Major population centers, military targets, fallout zones, natural disasters, and border exposure all drive risk — lower exposure means a more defensible position in a crisis.
This is heavily inspired by Joel Skousen's Strategic Relocation book. Highly recommended you checkout the book ($)Regional Safe Places
Below is our recommended "safe zones" in Colorado and the surrounding area based on our strategic heuristics. For most people, it's unrealistic to live in a “safe zone” full-time due to work, family or other personal reasons. They tend to be more rural. However, many of these areas are perfect for second homes and retreat properties that double as a vacation home or even a short-term rental.
Important Note: For informational purposes only. This does not mean nothing bad ever happens in the green zones. Please use common sense. This is based on public data and modeled with AI. We tried to take a conservative approach but mistakes happen. We update this regularly as new information becomes available.
Solar Generator Recommendations
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Strategic Assessment Analysis
Colorado offers a compelling mix of geographic isolation and resource abundance that makes it a serious contender for those prioritizing long-term resilience and self-sufficiency. The state’s position in the Rocky Mountain spine provides natural barriers against the kind of cascading chaos that tends to ripple out from coastal population centers, while its elevation and dry climate reduce many of the biological and weather-related risks that plague other regions. For a relocator thinking in terms of decades rather than election cycles, Colorado’s combination of hard terrain, water rights, and energy independence creates a foundation that is hard to match east of the Mississippi.
Geographic position and natural advantages for long-term security
Colorado sits at the physical and psychological crossroads of the American West, and that location matters when you’re mapping out fallback positions. The Front Range cities—Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Pueblo—are tucked against the eastern slope of the Rockies, giving residents quick access to high-altitude retreats while still being close enough to supply chains that run along I-25. The state’s average elevation above 6,800 feet means cooler summers and less insect-borne disease, and the lack of major hurricane or earthquake risk removes two of the biggest wildcards in disaster planning. The San Luis Valley in the south offers vast, sparsely populated agricultural land with its own aquifer system, and the Western Slope around Grand Junction provides a buffer from Front Range congestion. For someone looking to put distance between their family and the kind of civil unrest that tends to ignite in dense urban corridors, Colorado’s interior basins and mountain valleys are hard to beat.
Risks, exposures, and proximity to fallout-relevant landmarks
No state is a fortress, and Colorado has its own set of vulnerabilities that a strategic relocator needs to weigh. The biggest concentration of risk sits along the Front Range urban corridor, where Denver and its suburbs hold over half the state’s population. That corridor is also home to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (a former chemical weapons facility now a wildlife refuge, but with legacy contamination) and the Cheyenne Mountain Complex near Colorado Springs, which houses NORAD and USNORTHCOM. While Cheyenne Mountain is hardened against nuclear blast, its presence makes the region a potential target in a major conflict. The state’s energy infrastructure—including the Pueblo chemical depot and several natural gas processing plants along the Front Range—could become secondary targets or create hazardous plume events if damaged. Wildfire risk is the most immediate and recurring threat, particularly in the foothills west of Boulder and Colorado Springs, where dry summers and high winds have already destroyed thousands of homes. Flooding in the eastern plains and occasional drought in the San Luis Valley round out the natural hazard picture. For a prepper, the calculus is clear: avoid the Front Range’s urban core and its military-adjacent targets, and focus on the state’s less populated western and southern quadrants.
Practical resilience for a relocator: food, water, energy, and defensibility
Colorado’s practical resilience comes down to three things: water rights, energy independence, and terrain. The state is a headwaters state, meaning most of its rivers—the Colorado, the Arkansas, the Rio Grande—originate within its borders. That gives Colorado legal leverage over downstream states and makes senior water rights a genuinely valuable asset for anyone buying land with irrigation access. The Colorado River Basin and the Arkansas River Valley both support active farming communities, and the San Luis Valley’s potato and barley operations are some of the most productive in the region. On the energy side, Colorado is a net energy exporter, with natural gas, wind, and solar all in play. The Piceance Basin in the northwest holds significant natural gas reserves, and the state’s solar potential is excellent, especially in the southern half. Defensibility is where Colorado really shines: the mountain passes, narrow valleys, and high plateaus create natural chokepoints that would slow any large-scale movement, whether from civil unrest or a refugee flow. A well-chosen property in a place like Hinsdale County (the least densely populated county in the lower 48) or the San Juan Mountains near Silverton offers near-total isolation with enough arable land and water to sustain a small group indefinitely. The trade-off is harsh winters and limited medical access, but for someone willing to stock supplies and learn basic self-sufficiency, the resilience upside is enormous.
The overall strategic picture for Colorado is one of high reward with manageable risk, provided you pick your spot carefully. The state’s natural barriers, water sovereignty, and energy surplus make it one of the few places in the continental US where a determined relocator can realistically build a life that is both comfortable in normal times and survivable in bad ones. The key is to avoid the Front Range’s population density and military targets, and instead anchor in the state’s interior basins or high valleys where the land is cheap, the neighbors are few, and the escape routes into the mountains are short. Colorado is not a bug-out location—it’s a live-in location that happens to have excellent bug-in characteristics. For a conservative-minded individual or family looking to put down roots in a place that rewards preparation and self-reliance, it deserves a serious look.
Top 10 Cities by Strategic Assessment in Colorado
* Values derived from national, state, county, city and local statistics and may differ in a specific area. Last updated: 2026-04-16T00:59:19.000Z
Narrative content on this page is AI-generated and may contain mistakes. Verify any details that matter before acting on them.
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