November 4, 2006
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On Boulder…
About this time of year, every year, I ponder what it might be like to live somewhere else. Seattle is nice for a lot of things, but the rain… The rain…
The rain….
Anyway. Outdoor Magazine has this to say about Boulder, CO, a place I’ve investigated living:
But what’s it like to live here? Well, Boulder exudes a unique blend of over-the-top liberalism and extreme fitness. How to describe it… If Lance Armstrong and Amy Goodman had a love child, the prodigy would drive his Audi A4 to Boulder, buy a Maverick to decorate the roof rack, and then not ride the $5,000 bike because he didn’t want to encroach upon mountain lion habitat. Are you feeling the zeitgeist? [..]
Need more telling details? The Dunkin’ Donuts went out of business, but the oxygen bar next door to the gay-and-lesbian bookstore seems to be doing well. The panhandlers on the Pearl Street Mall sport $70 sandals and pull in upwards of 25 bucks an hour. Did anybody mention that the median sale price of a home here is $525,000? That’s $302,000 more than the national figure. The best don’t come cheap. If that’s too pricey for you, maybe you should check out Burlington or Santa Fe. Oh, right: bad sushi.
This is so spot-on as to be unbelievable.
I’m still considering the area, though. Up in the mountains closer to Nederland might be more my speed (and price range). Other contenders are the podunk Owens, CA (east side of the Sierras, home to Galen Rowell), Idaho Falls, ID (couple hours to either the Yellowstone plateau or the Sawtooths. What can I say?), Missoula, MT (same deal, except with Glacier and the Bitterroots, plus liberalism).
Of course, if the goal is to avoid adverse weather, then I should just move to LA. Maybe San Louis Obispo.
And speaking of Galen Rowell… He’s on my wish list.
Comments (10)
L.A.? Please tell me you’re joking.
Well, William F. House loves Boulder, so it can’t be horrible. However, I do believe it is typically good-looking, 30-something, rich, white people living there. So, if that’s your thing… (it ain’t mine) then talk to him more about it and he can give you a more accurate description, although I think the one above that you quoted was probably pretty darned close.
Idaho. Everyone is moving there. I have met five people in the last year who have moved there. It’s cheap and it’s nice and it’s relatively close to places of interest, but it’s the reddest state in the nation.
I’ve been to Boulder many times. In fact, Willam F. House bought me breakfast once.
w00t Boulder’s just a 12 hour drive from here
interesting view of Boulder…
Missoula is very nice – except, well, for winter. I couldn’t handle the Boulder wealth. I need to be surrounded by somewhat normal humans.
Adverse weather? What is that?
Ah yes. I forgot you met him/them there.
So, with that description, you STILL consider moving there? You’re thick-skinned, man.
I wouldn’t live *in* Boulder, just because it’s so expensive. You have to take out a loan to go to McDonald’s there. If I moved to that area, I’d end up in one of the suburbs outside the Boulder greenbelt, or more likely up in the mountains around Nederland. (The greenbelt, by the way, is one of the reasons Boulder is so expensive. They decided to limit sprawl in a big way, and deal with issues of density before becoming yet another sprawltown suburb of Denver like nearby Lafayette. So there’s a big no-man’s-land swath around Boulder where you can’t get a permit to build or develop. I love telling this story because so few people think in terms of legislating sprawl out of existence before it happens.)
As above, Boulder is very cool, but very expensive. There are better places in Colorado to live–I think of Durango or the not-so-pricey ski areas as such. Or just Denver–the weather in Denver is fantastic! It’s far milder than people think, and there are no bitey bugs (well, few). I loved living in Denver.
Boulder is a pretty awesome town, but for price I’d suggest Denver or Golden. As above, Denver is an awesome place to live – I’ve spent my whole life in a suburb called Littleton, but lived downtown this summer for a month while house-sitting, and loved it. It depends on what you’re looking for. Denver, as you noted, does have sprawl that Boulder doesn’t, so maybe Golden would be better – it’s definitly accessible to Denver, but it’s sort of a smallish gold rush town with lots of art museums and cafes.
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