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Tell me horrible things about Denver/Boulder
supabeast
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Registered User regular
I am considering moving my family to the Denver/Boulder area. In part because I hear loads of good things about Denver/Boulder. Tell me the bad sides that nobody mentions. FWIW, my family is two married gay white male atheists and our two not white toddlers. And yes, I already know that Focus on the Family and a whole host of other crazy Jesus wackos reside in Colorado.
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Having lived in this state for 16 years, the metro area for about 9, and Boulder specifically for 5:
-The fundies are mostly concentrated in Colorado Springs about an hour to the south and don't make much of an impact on stuff beyond there. You get the occasional rural-types and rich folks with the expected right-wingery but Denver is a pretty unpolitical area (in my experience) when it comes to big social issues. Boulder is, well...
-Boulder is populated and controlled almost entirely by wealthy aging hippies and populated by the same plus college students. Nobody will bat an eye if you smoke a joint in public, but failing to yield to a cyclist will get you a ticket. Animals are practically worshipped, but they aren't allowed downtown at all because of pooping and barking and all that icky stuff. It's a weird place but also delightful. A real foodie's town, with tons of great restaurants and breweries. It's also open-minded to a fault when it comes to alternative lifestyles. Still a lot of fun. Expensive to live in, the kind of starter home that might go for the mid 200s in a decent Denver suburb will set you back at least half a mil in Boulder unless it was built in the 50s. Traffic is awful; it can take you half an hour to get about five miles across town, and that's after rush hour.
That addresses the sucky stuff you asked about. The sucky stuff you didn't:
-The metro area is getting expensive to live in. Rents are up like 40% over the last five years. The housing market never really dived in the crash and has gotten pricier ever since, unless you choose to live 20 miles from everything in somewhere like Parker. Gas prices are comparable to LA or the East Coast, i.e. pretty high. This is a very desirable state to live in for a multitude of reasons and while it's not as outrageous as the bay area in terms of cost of living, it's higher than anything else from Texas to Minnesota and St. Louis to LA.
-The weather is usually nice, but it'll lull you into complacency. Severe summer weather is rare, but if you live on the eastern plains expect serious hail and serious tornadoes on a weekly basis during those months. Winters are usually mild but we get really bad blizzards from time to time, so you need to own a car that can handle some snow and ice even if you only need that a few weeks out of the year. I drove a rear wheel drive BMW for two winters and it almost killed me a few times even being insanely cautious. And weather forecasts are a joke, it'll go from 50s and sunny to 20s with icy roads in a few hours. Single digits and below-zero temps in the winter are about as common as 100s in the summer, so you'll need to own extreme weather clothing for all seasons. And the wind, don't get me started on the fucking wind. It ruins every outdoor activity from march to may and september to november.
-Denver traffic is bad. Not L.A. legendarily bad, though it should be. God help you if you have to commute during rush hour. I-25 is a special circle of hell. C-470 is the state's biggest parking lot. US 36 is a lovecraftian nightmare. I-70 during ski season reminds me of the entrance of an Alabama Wal-Mart at a midnight opening on Black Friday. You will grow to hate driving anywhere, because for some reason everywhere you have to go involves at least two highways, a couple of one-way streets, and is as far across town from where you are as is possible without leaving the metro area. This is logically impossible but experts have been hard at work studying non-Euclidean geometry and the potential existence of an intelligent and malicious creator to explain the phenomenon.
-This state has tried, and come respectably close to, killing me with fire not one but two times.
-People are mostly nice, but you get the odd insufferable uber-Boulderite, or activist stoner, or self-righteous yuppie snowboarder, or oversized-truck-driving redneck just often enough to make you forget the other 90% of the population.
-Anyone who tells you they're a native Coloradan has not actually uttered words that have meaning. It's such a mish-mash of cultures from various walks of life (and just about everyone within one or two generations came from elsewhere) that it's basically a blank cultural slate. About the only thing the state can truly lay a unique claim to, culturally, is the rise of American craft beer. And unleashing upon the world the pox that is South Park, which a lot of people here are oddly proud of. Which is a bit like being proud of having awoken Cthulhu from his slumber in R'lyeh.
-Don't go to Greeley. Ever. It smells like cow shit, but hilariously enough it's not actually cow shit. It's far, far more gruesome, and the most insidious thing about spending any amount of time in Greeley, something that Stephen King would have been proud to have written about, is that you grow accustomed to it and forget that it's there.
I don't actually dislike this state you just asked for the worst bits. I'm trying to be unkind here!
Everyone who lives in Colorado should experience Greeley at least once in their lifetime. Since I live about 25 minutes away from Greeley I get to experience it every time the wind blows from the east
I always find it weird that going to Boulder takes more time than going through Denver. The streets in Boulder just cant handle the kind of traffic they get. It is horrifying trying to get through that city.
Edit: Also, there is a reason Denver has the infamous Brown cloud. Although I think that has mostly cleared in the last decade or so. It used to be visible on the horizon for miles before you actually saw the skyline.
Colorado weather is fucking terrible as well, don't let anyone tell you different. Monday will see 3 inches of snow, Tuesday will be 60 degrees. You will leave the house on a beautiful spring morning, at noon there will be the worst rainstorm you have ever seen, and by 3 the streets are dry like it never happened. I guess there are people that think this is awesome, I call it Stockholm Syndrome.
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Everyone is radder than you, bro. Did you know that guy over there has done a triathlon? Don't worry, he'll make sure to tell you.
Denver
TRAFFIC - literally 1 way to get many places, so no "gaming" the traffic.
It's very LA-ish in how spread it is
Lots of strip malls (much like most of the west)
Very dry (as stated above)
A bit of a cultural wasteland, as the core is madeup of people from the midwest who wanted to go to a city (getting better though)
For you guys - there are a lot of fundies in CO. LOTS. Also lots of perfectly tolerant people, but just note there are pockets of weird.
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Navigating downtown was a pain in the butt with all the one-way streets and the river and such.
Also the weather was in the mid 60s for the 4 days we were there.
Until the last night when it dropped to like 25 and they got about 14 inches of snow.
But it was great to hang out in.
If you enjoy any sports on water or just being near water, you aren't going to the right place. Rivers are prone to flash flooding, and are either ice cold snowmelt or murky warm silt runoff.
This so much. Even if they haven't done it, they know someone better. They always know someone better.
More Boulder: Parking spaces are designed for tiny cars, roughly 50% of the cars are grey or forest green Subarus. The city is dogmatic in its pro-ecological orientation and has generated some of the craziest politicians and political machines I've had the misfortune of talking to. It's the Tea Party from the other side, and it is terrifying.
Fixed that for you. The weather is insane. Mother Nature makes an effort to kill you. We're #1 per capita for lightning strikes in the world. We're getting worse and worse traffic problems. The Waldo Canyon fire almost took my parents house. I'm from Colorado Springs, and yes the fundies get a little annoying. And the hippies in Boulder also get a little annoying.
But you know what?
Damn I love my state.
I took it up to the mountains several times, and it survived a blizzard or two. It's not really that bad, although a lot of people drive Subarus.
http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/41958719535/denver
As for 4x4 trucks, don't believe the hype. Unless you're living in the middle of nowhere, a front wheel drive is enough to get you anywhere you need to go in all but the very worst of conditions. In my experience, 4x4s tend to breed the kind of over confidence in drivers that ends with them sitting on the side of a road waiting for a tow truck to pull them out. Not always, and the majority of people who drive them are aware that it doesn't make their car unstoppable, but it happens enough to make note of.
I would recommend you split the difference between boulder and denver and look in the fort collins area. It's cheaper than denver, but not so "suburban" as some of the other outliers.
It has a lot of the same cultural liberalism as boulder but isn't so up its own ass about it, and you can very easily get to boulder or denver for events.
You will need neither a car nor a "4 wheel truck"
You will need a subaru. Subarus are really the only palatable option to combine high mileage, decent perforce, and 60/40 self correcting allwheel drive ... little fuckers stick to black ice like tree frogs on a window. Unless you have a lot of money. Then get a 4wd infiniti, or a land rover.
You literally cannot live in a square state without daily driving, unless you are willing to very much make a lifestyle out of being a non-driver.
Coming from an actual redneck hellhole (Casper wyoming) colorado seems pretty urbane to me, but don't expect it be Manhattan, obviously. It's got all the normal chain shit, some decent local stuff, but hey, you know, not Manhattan.
If your income isn't going down, 6000 a month essentially allows you point at any structure in northern colorado and go "That one" ... 1500 will rent you a decent house, 3000 something ostentatious, 5kay really something ridiculous. Boulder proper might cost a bit more.
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-The weather is definitely schizophrenic. Sometimes that's great and works in your favor. Other days it's sunny and warm and then suddenly oh shit it's snowing wait what it's sunny again?
-Looking for a place to live was somewhat of a hassle, as mentioned above. Your budget may render that irrelevant, but things definitely seemed a bit overpriced compared to size, and there was definitely more renters than availability. At some of the places we looked, there weren't many options, and those options were being fought over by a crowd of people. Could be seasonal though.
-As previously mentioned, traffic/commute can be annoying. Also, maaaaan we've seen a lot of bad drivers in Denver. Not necessarily aggressive (but sure), but just... not paying any sort of attention? Not sure what it is.
-Again, it is very dry here. Lots and lots of lotion to keep your skin from breaking.
-Everybody is fit and beautiful and has dogs. This isn't really a problem, I suppose, unless you count petty jealousy.
On the whole it's been a very pleasant experience, so take the bad things with a grain of salt.
But one thing to be aware of is the temperature differential from day to night. I recently moved to manhattan from boulder, and oh man.
Boulder gets cool/cold at night. In the summer I never ran the A/C at night, even when it got near 100s during the day. And if there is any water/slush on the road in the winter, it will be ice in the morning. Unless it is a rather warm winter day, then all bets are off.
There will be rather intense rain storms that disappear quickly- none of this day/afternoon-long nonsense I see out here.
Also, at high altitude, some people need a bit of time adjusting. If you visit, be aware that breathing may be difficult, especially if you do intense activity. But you should acclimate if you actually move there.
(I also happen to not be gay, but there you have it anyways).
I cannot describe the extreme mirth I feel when I am driving in the mountains in winter, and blow past lines Priuses and BMWs sliding backwards on ice downhill. Even when there's a two-hour delay because of them. It happens at least once a season.
You don't need a 4x4 if you're just going to be tooling around the city, but if you want to go skiing on your own terms then you will. You CAN make the trip in a 2WD most of the time but it's incredibly unsafe and you might get stuck.
Not really. For roads that are normally paved, 2WD with snow tires is about 95% as effective as 4WD, and not having an SUV actually helps when it comes to braking distance.
Also the state is hell on cars in general. Don't drive anything you cherish here, in this state you and your car are a two-man team fighting a losing battle against the ravages of weather, entropy, and the folly of humanity. At least one of you is going to get some scars to talk about.
I can elaborate on that. Colorado uses magnesium chloride instead of salt, which doesn't destroy car bodies. Back home (Canada), you just don't see old cars around because they crumble (because of the salt). Colorado uses gravel also, which means that everybody has pitted windshields (even cracked). Also, we get freakish hail storms sometimes. You sometimes see cars that are all dented/pitted from it, especially with RVs (the siding just cannot take it). But overall, you still see cars from the 80s around in great shape! The dry climate helps with that. I drive a 94 Honda Prelude that's still in great shape! My 0.02 dolla.
EDIT: I mean motorcar.
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I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
This goes so well with your avatar.
so is Arvada like Fallout LARPing or something
When I visited, traffic was a bitch. You need a car. It had some urban sprawl. Kinda typical complaints for US cities though. Scenery was gorgeous, but you need to tolerate winters. I live on Lake Superior, though, so any other winter feels relatively mild by comparison. I'd be GREAT with a Denver winter.
In addition, a buddy of mine moved from my hometown to Denver and he loves it. Raves about it often. And he lives on Colfax, a "shady" part of Denver, but still finds the experience mostly favorable. I went down Colfax and didn't find anything too disruptive. Some homeless guys asked us for one of our beers, and hey, why not? He was polite and all was well. It's anecdotal, but I give it the thumbs up.
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