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Boulder has a population of around 100,000 (about 30,000 are students at the University of Colorado.) In some ways it feels like a (distant) suburb of Denver;
by lotharbot 12y ago
Boulder has a population of around 100,000 (about 30,000 are students at the University of Colorado.)
In some ways it feels like a (distant) suburb of Denver; there are people who commute from one to the other, though it's about a 40 mile drive. But in other ways it's very isolated. It's politically comparable to Berkley or Austin. It's racially a strong white majority with few hispanics (Denver is over 1/3 hispanic).
As another commenter mentioned, Boulder has intentionally created open space around itself. There's a city ordinance limiting water service to under a certain elevation in order to reduce the attractiveness of building up on the mountainsides. The city owns a huge amount of open space around its borders and allows only very limited, controlled development.
- dvanduzer 12y agoFor the HN crowd, think of Boulder as the Marin County of the Silicon Flatirons.
- TWAndrews 12y agoIt's definitely not a suburb of Denver. It's relatively close, but it's a different place. It's a lot like Ann Arbor, Madison, or other cities of about 100k which have a large university in town. It's actually got a fair bit of tech activity--nothing like top tier cities like SF, NYC, Boston, or even Austin, but for it's size the tech scene is significant.
- ryanwanger 12y agoI've heard over and over that Boulder (county, which is around 300,000 people) is #1 in the country for software jobs per capita - but unfortunately I don't have a tangible source for that.