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A typical high school class in Idaho sends 31% of its students to college. (NPR Boise) They blame the lack of community colleges for this stat. The 69% high school grads eek out a comfortable living in a field like gardening, barista, or child care. They generally hate work and work hard to get out of it.
A lot of children take over the family business such as horse trainer, Karate instructor, or farmer. Wages are good for gardeners and repair people which means prices are not good for middle income folks. You'll often see gardeners driving $50k trucks.
Conversely, Doctors, engineers, planners etc all gain career knowledge out of state and are rare. Generally the professionals are not the sharpest tools in the shed relative to national standards (and you'll have to work with him)
The overall cost of living is very low. Hence the typical employee has no incentive to work hard or continue education. Coming from CA, I find services to be bad, but the people are nice. (Hope you don't get sick here. They'll give you a kiss on the head then inject you with the wrong meds.) 3 of our 4 neighbors have replaced their septic systems and had burst frozen pipes in their newer homes.
The bad news is that some goods and services are relative to a national scale and Boise is remote. Gasoline, A trip to Hawaii or Disneyland, designer clothes from Nordstroms, fresh produce, gourmet restaurants all become price prohibitive. Locals cannot move away or even vacation away. Soon you will notice sticker shock as well.
Don't be a career woman or minority in Boise. The expectations are different here and the support services reflect the local needs. The population is not mixed race. The people either don't know how to be pc or they're very standoffish to minorities.
There are many career woman in Boise. I don't agree with your last sentence either, nor any of your post for that matter. Sorry.
Funny how some people who label others as being close minded seem to be very close minded themselves.
Do you also speak for minorities who live in Boise? How do minorities feel do ya think?
I think you can ask any number of people that come from war torn Slavic nations and other nations such as Haiti who have had their families relocated to Boise and churches and others have helped them set up their new lives iwth money and sweat.
Yup, sounds like Boiseans are pretty harsh to minorities.
this notion that boise is racist and backwards is ridiculous. Boise is different that's for sure but in a good way. I moved to boise in 2004 from seattle, before that living in Sydney Australia. I absolutely love boise, and I am a gay male. There is plenty of diversity here for a city its size. One of my good friends moved here from chicago. He's African American AND Gay.. and he loves it as well. It is the very essence of the word. Minority. doesn't matter if you live in LA NY Seattle. Dallas.. a "minority" is exactly that because there is less of them in respects to the majority. I think that in boise minorities might be MORE of a minority, but they are treated MUCH better and accepted much better than any other place I've lived. We don't have black, brown or asian neighbourhoods. We don't even have a "gay district" but its not because boise isn't diverse and accepting.. its because downtown is filled with venues and business that are welcoming to all these groups and they all exist among each other...
You can go to a gay dance club in downtown boise and cross the street to a predominently straight cowboy bar..
Black Jack says don't be a minority in Boise. Where is so much better?
Having grown up in Boise as a white guy and lived in California around the Bay area, I would say that long term Idahoans are not in the main racists, and the reputation is undeserved. But Idaho was mostly a white, native born state from the 1930s to the 1980s - there were no jobs here, so the population grew very slowly and bled off to the bigger cities. Because it was so white Idaho drew some high profile separatists who thought they'd found their utopia and they made the news a lot. They were not typical Idahoans. Many long term Idahoans are not used to interacting with anyone who is not both white and American born, but they don't toss around racial slurs, they don't talk fearfully, and they will hazard an interaction with anybody. To me this is the difference between white-minority interactions in Idaho and California.
I didn't grow up with ideas about where not to walk or drive, or who not to talk to. I also didn't have a sense that some jobs were for non-whites only. Boise still has mostly white trash collectors, landscapers, janitors - jobs that I never saw anyone white doing in California. California was a trip that way: people have no-go zones, no-live zones, no-work zones, don't even go there zones, and their worries get heavier the more money they have. They live on islands. It shows up in all the questions about safety. "Is Boise safe?"
Not being a minority, I can't say what it feels like living in Idaho, but I'd get there would be a lot of looks and second looks - in Idaho, African Americans, for example, are not merely a minority but a novelty. I'd guess that could get tiring. But there is no vicious hostility in much of Idaho.
More recently, there has been a growing wave of anti-Hispanic sentiment in the Boise area that seems to me largely the work of relocated white Californians who moved to Idaho because they did not like Hispanics, the "white flight" folks wanting to put a 600 mile moat around their gated communities. Boise has gated communities - though the gates are usually left open.
That moat mentality really isn't prominent among long term Idahoans. They aren't scared of people who are different, even if they might look at you funny until they get to talk to you. So I think the racist portrait of Idaho is (or used to be) off-base.
Being able to interact with people who don't fear you should somewhat balance the equation with being a novelty, and I suppose that might be why some minorities might like living in Idaho. While it lasts.
I just think its funny when people say.. idaho is racist because it isn't diverse.. and LA is much more diverse and accepting because there's more. Thats like saying "we don't hate black people, we have lots of them" that line is corny and absurd and so is making the assumption that your population base is more diverse means it's more accepting because that is certainly not the case... there is a live and let live mentality in idaho that is nice. Even being gay myself and knowing that some people I meet probably have their own personal beliefs about it, I haven't met anyone that has made me feel uncomfortable or gone out of their way to say or do anything rude. For me that speaks for itself... I don't get involved in everyone else's personal beliefs and I would expect them to do the same for me, with that said though, Idaho is no different than anywhere else.. people are people.. if its not one thing its another... we aren't perfect beings unfortunately. I would welcome anyone and anything that adds to the diversity of boise and idaho.. it really is a nice place to call home..
I have to chime in at this point...even though I loathe doing so. I am incredibly conflicted in regards to my feelings about Boise...kind of a love/hate thing. Consider that full disclosure.
I just left Boise after nearly two years...relocated to Southern California. I had relocated to Boise from a similar sized mountain-west town. I wanted so badly to love Boise. On paper it looks perfect. On paper, my life in Boise was perfect as well. I made an above-average wage by local standards (which still was MUCH less than national standards), owned an amazing house in the North End that I got for less than 300k (!), and was generally very content. It was a quiet, generally stress-free life. Money was never an issue, as cost of living is VERY low.
Boise is all that people say it is. The outdoors, the quaint downtown, the parks, the young families on bicycles, etc. Sounds kind of Stepford wives-esque, eh? It is. Couple that with a very ominous and noticeable undercurrent when it comes to local and state government, and a very real "redneck" mentality that comes up where one least expects it, and you've got a more accurate picture of Boise.
Boise is undoubtedly a town on the rise, but it has a long way to go. If you want to buy in now and wait 20 years, provided all goes well, you may find yourself sitting on the next PDX.
A good portion of locals HATE new residents, especially Californians. They are terrified of growth, new business, etc. Notice I said terrified, not angry at. They really are scared, and they don’t know how to deal or compete, so they band together in small groups and pretend it’s not happening. These same people tend to complain about the incredibly low wages in the same breath, seemingly not recognizing the connection.
It is not a well-educated town. Very honest, hardworking, friendly, simple people. Very blue-collar. The well educated or "cultured" minority tends to band together and discuss how progressive Boise is becoming. And they are not wrong. There doesn’t seem to really be a need for educated professionals, either. I think you would be better off having a skilled trade than an MBA in Boise.
Wages are pitifully low, and the ultra conservative state/local government kills/cuts any sort of social services whenever possible, creating a culture of disenfranchised, underserved low-income locals who resent being at the mercy of outsiders with more money. Again, they tend to blame said outsiders rather than their elected officials or themselves.
Boise still doesn't have a community college or any sort of city college. Primarily because the population didn't find it worth funding/having until recently. I think that speaks for itself.
When discussing the area, it’s important to separate the two major population centers in the MSA. Ada County (Boise) and Canyon County (not Boise). The places you want to avoid start in Meridian and extend west into all of Canyon County. Meridian is generally pleasant, all tract homes and newer strip malls and shopping centers with all the modern conveniences. If its suburbia you’re looking for, this is it. However, due to poor planning, traffic is as bad or worse as you would find in a large city during rush hours. Same goes for the one highway that connects Ada and Canyon County.
Canyon County is rife with poverty, METH (this is the worst problem in the area, imo), and some burgeoning gang activity. The gang stuff is nothing like you see in most places of equal size...but its starting to happen. And because it involves non-white "outsiders" more often than not, it takes precedence over more pressing problems (i.e. METH). To hear locals speak, you would think that the entirety of south-central Los Angeles has taken over. This reaction seems to be based out of fear more than anything.
Canyon County is less scary than it is sad...kind of like traveling through some of the more economically depressed areas of the Midwest or central California. It’s CHEAP to live in, but is it worth it?
The social climate of the Treasure Valley is fascinating right now...really an area in transition. They've made some really great moves, and some incredibly stupid ones. It’s the classic case of wanting the best of both worlds. Boise wants to be considered metropolitan, but is terrified of losing its values. Boise wants to be known as a good place to live and work to the outside, but rejects any sort of initiatives that would lead to higher wages and more upward mobility.
The real estate market is INCREDIBLE, but the long-time local can’t afford it anymore. Go and buy if you can, and sit on it for 10 years or so. You will not find a better desirable dwelling/quality of life ratio anywhere for the money.
No crime to speak of in Ada County, mainly because it felt like people were scared of the police, who are known to utilize a little "frontier justice" on suspects from time to time. They have also shot and killed...what was it...5 or 6 suspects in the last 2 years?
Summers are much hotter than they are made out to be, winters are about what you would expect. All of the cold, but no snow.
I think all of the above is a fair assessment of what I observed as a transplant to the Treasure Valley. I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible.
However, now I am going to editorialize: I don't care what anyone says...there is a pronounced racist undercurrent in the entire state. Especially against Hispanics (I am white, btw). You have to understand that this is a very WHITE state and town. Its not southern racism…its more resentment than an outright hatred.
Just so you know.
Do some research on a man named Bill Sali. Google him. He is the man that THE MAJORITY (I know. not all of you voted for him) of the residents of the area chose to represent them in Washington. I think that speaks volumes.
Here’s the upside. If you long for a place of your own where you can live a safe, suburban life and raise kids, have some space and some of the amenities that you are used to, for hardly any money...Boise is it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Great place for a family, great place to start out on the cheap, great place for a lot of things. No crime, no smog, no graffiti, great little downtown, great utilization of the green space and river. Ada County is beautiful too, aesthetically speaking. Good luck. You could do MUCH worse than Boise…its just a matter of what you’re looking for.
Very interesting perspective Jacob. I am new to the area and like it so far. I have also observed some of the behavior and social issues you mentioned but still consider it a step up from other places I've been, like So. Cal for example. You'll see... Good luck down there and bleed a little Dodger Blue for me while you're there!
TTFN, C.C.
Jakobinarina, from my experience, you offer a very honest assessment of Boise. Boise is a great place for young families - it's affordable and kid friendly. There also seem to be a lot of very happy retirees here, as well. The Treasure Valley is extremely pleasant, but like everywhere else, it's not without imperfections.
We moved here a little less than two years ago from California. Our kids are school age and the oldest will be in college in a couple of years. I did not research the community college situation before we moved here and was surprised to learn that there isn't one anywhere near Boise. My main motivation for leaving California was to ensure my kids a chance at home ownership; something I considered impossible in California given the housing market at the time. Now that we are here in Idaho, I realize that, although home prices are lower here, wages are such that home ownership would still be a major struggle for our children here.
As for Mr. Sali and his political representation, I had to laugh. Just today, we received a survey from his office asking us to indicate if we agree with him that immigrants should be stopped at the border and that English should be declared the official language of the US. He represents a proudly conservative state, seemingly disinclined to accept nonnative influences.
Boise is wonderful in many ways; however, someone's perception of any town is based on what they want out of life. We've decided that what we want right now- educational opportunities for our kids, decent wages, shorter commute times, progressive state and local government-is found back in our home state. We will be moving back to California, which will probably make several Idahoans very happy :-)
Change does not happen overnight, and if you knew what boise was like even as early as the 1980's, you'd realize that change is happening fast. Moving to a place that is not experiencing change and growth is one thing because you're the odd ball newcomer, but boise is hardly an example of that. Most people i meet are transplants, so many of the issues you speak of are not only by the fault of natives but also newcomers. It is this wave of newcomers that continues to fuel the process of change. If you wish to pack your bags and move away I wish you the best of luck, but for the record the treasure valley community College opens its doors next year. What you like about california is not a constant, it was a progress to get where it is to provide what you seek for yourself and your family. Idaho has been a remote place for a very long time, and is just beginning to understand and adapt to the needed change that is in demand. Concordia University is looking to start a law school here in the Boise area, as well as UI. Everything is right on our doorsteps if you just get involved to make the change. There is enough of us here that are new and know better, to where we can really make an impact and make boise a place to call home for everyone. Just don't count your chickens till they're hatched, Boise is on a quick road to change in a decade.. the kind of change places like pdx and california took 3 or 4 decades to achieve...
Great post jakobinarina!! Thank you for taking the time to post it! Very insightful :-) Best wishes to you and your family!
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Good luck down there and bleed a little Dodger Blue for me while you're there!
