I live in the Denver metro area and I think this assessment is pretty spot-on. The only downside is rush hour traffic around downtown can add 15-20 minutes to the commute. However, these is a significant light rail presence.
I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc.
And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers here.
I lived in Denver for the past 2 years and agree with this assessment as well. The light rail has expanded lines in recent years to the airport and I have read that the plan is for that expansion to continue to eventually link Denver and Boulder. Amazon could build their huge complex anywhere in that area and workers could take public transportation to the office.
I graduated from CU-Boulder in 2009 and have lived in the Denver-metro area ever since. I could very easily see Amazon drawn to the Boulder-Longmont-Lafayette triangle if not in Denver proper.
Lots of growth here in the last 5 years especially. Many long-time locals are complaining about the cost-of-living going up, though.
Having been in Seattle for nearly a decade now, Denver is one place that I'd absolutely consider at some point. I love mountains and sunshine, which Denver gets in spades. Having grown up in MT, the mountains around Seattle are beautiful, but never feel quite right to me—mountains should be dry!
People in the Boulder area approved a sales tax increase to start paying for this back in 2004. At that time it was sold as something that would be built in 10 years, that estimation later changed. Part of the problem is that the plan is to follow an existing railroad right-of-way, so they are financially at the mercy of the company who owns the existing rail system.
That really sucks but I've heard points to one of the issues of why we can't have high-speed rail in the US (outside of politics): freight always gets the right-of-way.
I guess in LA we're somewhat lucky that Metro can pretty much do whatever they want.
I would say quality of life is great for anyone that likes to do anything outdoors: fishing, skiing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc.
And there's a pretty strong community of software engineers here.