4 ms·

Besides snow (assuming you don't like it), what are Colorado's negatives? Both the state in general and the cities mentioned.

no_one_ever 9y ago
Never been to CO personally, but friends say if you aren't into outdoor activities/slow lifestyle, it can be dull. A lot of social groups are centered around what you do outside.
- trentmb 9y ago
  > slow lifestyle I've seen this before, but never quite understood what it means- lack of a 'night life?'
  - bproven 9y ago
    yes I guess if you are used to places like SF / CA bay area, LA or any of the big east coast cities. Also it is not located close to any other major cities so you are "stuck" with whatever Denver has to offer for the most part. However the positive is the people in CO are the fittest in the nation due to this love of the outdoors.
    - TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
      I was new to Boulder, and noticed a lot of people jogging. So I asked somebody in a store if there was a race or something. They looked at me funny and, no, it's just Saturday in Boulder.
  - jhgaylor 9y ago
    This is totally anecdotal but, moving from Mountain View to Denver was night and day. A couple of examples: Work seems to go slower here. It seems even the frantic pace of startup life takes a back seat to work life balance. People aren't usually in a hurry on the sidewalks downtown. It can be infuriating if you have somewhere to go.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - bproven 9y ago
      Yep - but many people (myself included) see this as a good thing. :) It leads to drastic reduction in stress and an overall healthier (mind and body) lifestyle. But if you are used to high stress and crappy work/life balance (or have adapted to that lifestyle) I can see how it would try your patience.
soared 9y ago
Median house value in Boulder proper is like $900k or something insane. You can still find cheap housing but it likely won't last due to high population growth. If you want to rent, bring a check for the deposit when touring so you can lock it down right away, otherwise you'll lose it. Other than that, I'm not sure. Everywhere except Colorado Springs is pretty liberal, which not everyone loves. We've also gotten a lot more homeless people since weed was legalized.
- madengr 9y ago
  I wold have considered CO, but after all the gun control measures, no way. Too many people from CA moving there, bringing liberal agendas, not libertarian. Is nice that pot was legalized though.
bproven 9y ago
I lived there for 10 years - its one of my favorite places to live, but there are a few things that can be perceived as negatives: - snow/cold (however its the mildest you will find for a place that gets snow). But snow is snow if you don't like it -if you are from the coasts (say CA) you may not dig the politics - mainly b/c its not a one sided echo chamber like I find CA to be. I found it to be a decent mix of both major parties. Some may not like this, but personally I found it refreshing. - no oceans - land locked - fairly isolated... besides Denver there are not a lot of large cities around to easily travel to. But the counterpoint to this is that DIA is a major airport with lots of flight options. - public transportation is not really great - you will need a car, especially in the winter. But it is better than many major US cities (US public transportation is pretty awful in general anyway). This is one area I really wish CO would do a bit of forward thinking on building this out quickly now before it becomes CA bay area/LA. It is disconcerting considering that it would be fairly easy to accomplish since most of the populous cities in CO are located in a straight line North/South along the mountain range. Ideal for a high speed train with east/west light rail into the city cores. But, I digress... :) - depending on the city/area you decide to settle in, pay is not quite where it needs to be to support the quickly rising housing costs. I visit probably 1-2x per year and it is amazing the amount of growth and population surge that has occurred in the past few years. Denver is experiencing a huge boom right now and housing is not keeping up. Outside of Denver or Boulder proper I found salaries to be pretty low compared to cost of living. For instance, I lived in one of the cities mentioned in the article (Fort Collins). Although IMO a great city to live, the IT job market is horrible. It may have a high concentration of intelligent people, but many of those are stuck working at coffee shops just to live in FC. But I guess that says a lot about FC and CO , people are willing to do that to live there... These are just a few negatives that honestly may not really be negatives to many people. Of course there is no perfect place to live - you can spend your whole life searching for that. I'd list out the positives too, but this post would get really unruly :)
- madengr 9y ago
  The housing prices in Boulder proper are insane.
tspike 9y ago
Born and raised there. Off the top of my head: - Not much diversity aside from a large Hispanic population - Sprawl. Endless repetitive suburbs - I've heard people from large cities complain about it being boring - Increasingly crowded - Hard to make long term friends. Most people seem to stay 3-5 years and then go home or elsewhere - Food is getting better but not great - I-70 is a shitshow. Don't be surprised when at some point it takes you 8 hours to get back from skiing on a weekend - Lack of water, closest ocean is 1000 miles away. No big lakes
- bproven 9y ago
  Agreed on many of these. Diversity is low, foodies would go through withdrawal if they came from somewhere like SF bay area, and outside say Boulder, LoDo/downtown Denver or maybe FC it is just car-centric sprawl. I-70 Denver to Summit county really needs a freaking train... Ugh
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ikeyany 9y ago
You probably won't love it if you're black, if that makes a difference.
pweissbrod 9y ago
Coming from a small town in northeast I found lots of 'keeping up with the joneses' experiences. Important to display your wealth/fitness but in a way that youre not trying to display it. I found the subtleties exhausting. It was refreshing to return to a small town. Your experience may vary.
- tspike 9y ago
  Yep. Growing up in an unremarkable Denver suburb, it was amusing moving to Boulder for college to see newcomers try to out-Colorado each other.
- bproven 9y ago
  Sadly this in endemic to almost all large cities. If you think its bad in CO you should try CA. They take to a whole other level here...
oh_sigh 9y ago
I live in Boulder and it doesn't snow very much here. It feels about the same as it snowed in suburban eastern PA where I grew up. Go up into the mountains 15 minutes away and that is another story...
brandmeyer 9y ago
Hailstorms (seasonal). Farther to the east, tornadoes. Wildfires in the foothills, but not as points near the west coast.

no_one_ever 9y ago

Never been to CO personally, but friends say if you aren't into outdoor activities/slow lifestyle, it can be dull. A lot of social groups are centered around what you do outside.

trentmb 9y ago
> slow lifestyle I've seen this before, but never quite understood what it means- lack of a 'night life?'
- bproven 9y ago
  yes I guess if you are used to places like SF / CA bay area, LA or any of the big east coast cities. Also it is not located close to any other major cities so you are "stuck" with whatever Denver has to offer for the most part. However the positive is the people in CO are the fittest in the nation due to this love of the outdoors.
  - TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
    I was new to Boulder, and noticed a lot of people jogging. So I asked somebody in a store if there was a race or something. They looked at me funny and, no, it's just Saturday in Boulder.
- jhgaylor 9y ago
  This is totally anecdotal but, moving from Mountain View to Denver was night and day. A couple of examples: Work seems to go slower here. It seems even the frantic pace of startup life takes a back seat to work life balance. People aren't usually in a hurry on the sidewalks downtown. It can be infuriating if you have somewhere to go.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - bproven 9y ago
    Yep - but many people (myself included) see this as a good thing. :) It leads to drastic reduction in stress and an overall healthier (mind and body) lifestyle. But if you are used to high stress and crappy work/life balance (or have adapted to that lifestyle) I can see how it would try your patience.

soared 9y ago

Median house value in Boulder proper is like $900k or something insane. You can still find cheap housing but it likely won't last due to high population growth. If you want to rent, bring a check for the deposit when touring so you can lock it down right away, otherwise you'll lose it. Other than that, I'm not sure. Everywhere except Colorado Springs is pretty liberal, which not everyone loves. We've also gotten a lot more homeless people since weed was legalized.

madengr 9y ago
I wold have considered CO, but after all the gun control measures, no way. Too many people from CA moving there, bringing liberal agendas, not libertarian. Is nice that pot was legalized though.

bproven 9y ago

I lived there for 10 years - its one of my favorite places to live, but there are a few things that can be perceived as negatives: - snow/cold (however its the mildest you will find for a place that gets snow). But snow is snow if you don't like it -if you are from the coasts (say CA) you may not dig the politics - mainly b/c its not a one sided echo chamber like I find CA to be. I found it to be a decent mix of both major parties. Some may not like this, but personally I found it refreshing. - no oceans - land locked - fairly isolated... besides Denver there are not a lot of large cities around to easily travel to. But the counterpoint to this is that DIA is a major airport with lots of flight options. - public transportation is not really great - you will need a car, especially in the winter. But it is better than many major US cities (US public transportation is pretty awful in general anyway). This is one area I really wish CO would do a bit of forward thinking on building this out quickly now before it becomes CA bay area/LA. It is disconcerting considering that it would be fairly easy to accomplish since most of the populous cities in CO are located in a straight line North/South along the mountain range. Ideal for a high speed train with east/west light rail into the city cores. But, I digress... :) - depending on the city/area you decide to settle in, pay is not quite where it needs to be to support the quickly rising housing costs. I visit probably 1-2x per year and it is amazing the amount of growth and population surge that has occurred in the past few years. Denver is experiencing a huge boom right now and housing is not keeping up. Outside of Denver or Boulder proper I found salaries to be pretty low compared to cost of living. For instance, I lived in one of the cities mentioned in the article (Fort Collins). Although IMO a great city to live, the IT job market is horrible. It may have a high concentration of intelligent people, but many of those are stuck working at coffee shops just to live in FC. But I guess that says a lot about FC and CO , people are willing to do that to live there... These are just a few negatives that honestly may not really be negatives to many people. Of course there is no perfect place to live - you can spend your whole life searching for that. I'd list out the positives too, but this post would get really unruly :)

madengr 9y ago
The housing prices in Boulder proper are insane.

tspike 9y ago

Born and raised there. Off the top of my head: - Not much diversity aside from a large Hispanic population - Sprawl. Endless repetitive suburbs - I've heard people from large cities complain about it being boring - Increasingly crowded - Hard to make long term friends. Most people seem to stay 3-5 years and then go home or elsewhere - Food is getting better but not great - I-70 is a shitshow. Don't be surprised when at some point it takes you 8 hours to get back from skiing on a weekend - Lack of water, closest ocean is 1000 miles away. No big lakes

bproven 9y ago
Agreed on many of these. Diversity is low, foodies would go through withdrawal if they came from somewhere like SF bay area, and outside say Boulder, LoDo/downtown Denver or maybe FC it is just car-centric sprawl. I-70 Denver to Summit county really needs a freaking train... Ugh

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ikeyany 9y ago

You probably won't love it if you're black, if that makes a difference.

pweissbrod 9y ago

Coming from a small town in northeast I found lots of 'keeping up with the joneses' experiences. Important to display your wealth/fitness but in a way that youre not trying to display it. I found the subtleties exhausting. It was refreshing to return to a small town. Your experience may vary.

tspike 9y ago
Yep. Growing up in an unremarkable Denver suburb, it was amusing moving to Boulder for college to see newcomers try to out-Colorado each other.
bproven 9y ago
Sadly this in endemic to almost all large cities. If you think its bad in CO you should try CA. They take to a whole other level here...

oh_sigh 9y ago

I live in Boulder and it doesn't snow very much here. It feels about the same as it snowed in suburban eastern PA where I grew up. Go up into the mountains 15 minutes away and that is another story...

brandmeyer 9y ago

Hailstorms (seasonal). Farther to the east, tornadoes. Wildfires in the foothills, but not as points near the west coast.