Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

IN 1871 WILLIAM JACKSON PALMER, a civil-war general and railway magnate, looked up at Pikes Peak in central Colorado and decided “he wanted to build a city that matched the magnificent scenery”. Or so says John Suthers, the mayor of Colorado Springs, the town Palmer would eventually found at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Now, 150 years later, Mr Suthers says the residents of Colorado Springs are still trying to build that shining city on a hill. Lately, though, the building has sped up.