The City Of Longmont (Pueblo, Niwot: sales, homes, neighborhoods)

[silvers]

Originally Posted by V1VrV2

As a future Longmont resident, I'd be interested in hearing you elaborate.

Well there's crime and a lot of wannabe gang members. There are very few places to shop, unless you're cool with Wal-Mart/Target one stop shopping. You aren't going to find many nice stores here at all, period. I do my clothes shopping in Boulder.

It's not a very pretty town to live in, just the way it's laid out isn't very aesthetically pleasing, to me. Others will have a different opinion but I've never looked around and thought wow, what a nice town Longmont is, lol. For example neighborhoods are mostly jammed together one story houses with chain link fences, with broken sidewalks in front.

You really need to have a car because public transportation is limited. It's not really safe to walk where you need to go. There's pretty much nothing to do. It's gaining in population but basically it's got that small town "feel" to it.

The hospital care is not the best, my family has had awful experiences I'm not even going to get into. I honestly hope it's better for you. The schools are just so-so. Meth is a problem. You learn to recognize the signs of someone who's strung out really quickly, haha.

There's also a lot of racism. Longmont is just a few miles from Boulder but the attitudes couldn't be more different, it's like night and day. Boulder is much, MUCH more inclusive. Longmont has a Southern kind of attitude. I read somewhere that the KKK used to run the town, no joke. It explains a lot of things, haha.

There are some people who try to make Longmont feel like a community with various activities, but honestly, I've never felt like it was a place where I was welcome or that I belonged in. People are just... here.

[eon-krate32]

Originally Posted by silvers

Well there's crime and a lot of wannabe gang members. There are very few places to shop, unless you're cool with Wal-Mart/Target one stop shopping. You aren't going to find many nice stores here at all, period. I do my clothes shopping in Boulder.

It's not a very pretty town to live in, just the way it's laid out isn't very aesthetically pleasing, to me. Others will have a different opinion but I've never looked around and thought wow, what a nice town Longmont is, lol. For example neighborhoods are mostly jammed together one story houses with chain link fences, with broken sidewalks in front.

You really need to have a car because public transportation is limited. It's not really safe to walk where you need to go. There's pretty much nothing to do. It's gaining in population but basically it's got that small town "feel" to it.

The hospital care is not the best, my family has had awful experiences I'm not even going to get into. I honestly hope it's better for you. The schools are just so-so. Meth is a problem. You learn to recognize the signs of someone who's strung out really quickly, haha.

There's also a lot of racism. Longmont is just a few miles from Boulder but the attitudes couldn't be more different, it's like night and day. Boulder is much, MUCH more inclusive. Longmont has a Southern kind of attitude. I read somewhere that the KKK used to run the town, no joke. It explains a lot of things, haha.

There are some people who try to make Longmont feel like a community with various activities, but honestly, I've never felt like it was a place where I was welcome or that I belonged in. People are just... here.

You obviously haven't seen any of the developments past 1980.

Longmont was designed to be a hub, a residential city (key word being RESIDENTIAL) so of course it's not going to have all the local chain stores on every corner. I agree that Longmont needs to spend more time with commercial development instead of sprouting octoplex condos, but so far Longmont has been repeatedly voted a top place to live in America. As far as the 'wanna-be's' they stay in very small sections of town and do very little more than graffiti. Every once in a great while you might hear of a break in but those are rare at best. As far as the meth goes I do agree that Longmont has a minor issue with that but the city is cracking down and the number of meth labs have dropped quite drastically in recent years. I've never had to stay at the local hospital but two of my three siblings have and they all said it was a great experience and BOTH of my parents (whom were both in the medical industry for nearly 2 decades each) said the doctors there were among the best they've seen. Racism I believe is a residual effect from the KKK city takeover in the 1970's that hasn't quite worked its way out of our system yet. Nor does it seem like you've found your niche here either. Just what part of town do you live in anyways?

[chilaili]

I don't understand the comment "It's not really safe to walk". Firstly, I've never had an issue with the public transportation in town - my family and I find it very useful - and I've never had a problem walking anywhere. What parts of town are you walking thro that would make you say that? And there are VERY few neighbourhoods with chain link fences and broken sidewalks! Have you ever even visited the area around W 3rd Street or the northern end of Pace Street or Prospect?

[DressageRider]

Originally Posted by silvers

Well there's crime and a lot of wannabe gang members. There are very few places to shop, unless you're cool with Wal-Mart/Target one stop shopping. You aren't going to find many nice stores here at all, period. I do my clothes shopping in Boulder.

It's not a very pretty town to live in, just the way it's laid out isn't very aesthetically pleasing, to me. Others will have a different opinion but I've never looked around and thought wow, what a nice town Longmont is, lol. For example neighborhoods are mostly jammed together one story houses with chain link fences, with broken sidewalks in front.

You really need to have a car because public transportation is limited. It's not really safe to walk where you need to go. There's pretty much nothing to do. It's gaining in population but basically it's got that small town "feel" to it.

The hospital care is not the best, my family has had awful experiences I'm not even going to get into. I honestly hope it's better for you. The schools are just so-so. Meth is a problem. You learn to recognize the signs of someone who's strung out really quickly, haha.

There's also a lot of racism. Longmont is just a few miles from Boulder but the attitudes couldn't be more different, it's like night and day. Boulder is much, MUCH more inclusive. Longmont has a Southern kind of attitude. I read somewhere that the KKK used to run the town, no joke. It explains a lot of things, haha.

There are some people who try to make Longmont feel like a community with various activities, but honestly, I've never felt like it was a place where I was welcome or that I belonged in. People are just... here.

I'm just curious... where do you plan to move to?

Longmont is in no way perfect. But neither is Boulder, Denver... or San Diego, or Portland, or anywhere.

The above is your experience, but mostly it isn't mine.

Well, there is crime, of course. It is a city of 80,000+ people. It would be awesomely impressive if there weren't crime.

I think that Old Town is quite pretty, and you can't beat the view of the mountains around here.

I do think that you need a car. But I've never felt unsafe walking around Longmont! Only at night by myself, but that is common sense.

Meth addicts? Racists? I'm sure they're out there, and they are everywhere. But I haven't actually met any. I guess I don't travel in those circles.

Oh, and I googled your KKK reference. Apparently they were in city council from 1925 to 1927.

Not every place is for everyone, and there are definitely times when I think about moving to this place or that. But right now we're enjoying where we live. (I want the snow to melt though. C'mon, Colorado sun!)

[Count David]

Longmont is a fine town.

It wants to be a detached Middle America small town, but it's hard to do that when you have Boulder and its zaniness to the west, metro Denver and its cityness to the south, and Tri-town and its cookie-cutters to the east. Longmont kinda just sits in the middle of all of that, and seems to be struggling to hang on to its old identity.

I don't think Longmont is racist, but I'll provide two examples anyway.

1. I have a friend who lives there who thinks his "neighborhood is going to heck" because a black man moved in.

2. Per the locals, there are two Wal-Marts in town. Wal-Mart, and Wal-Martinez.

[dreamboatannie953]

Originally Posted by David Aguilar

Longmont is a fine town.

It wants to be a detached Middle America small town, but it's hard to do that when you have Boulder and its zaniness to the west, metro Denver and its cityness to the south, and Tri-town and its cookie-cutters to the east. Longmont kinda just sits in the middle of all of that, and seems to be struggling to hang on to its old identity.

I don't think Longmont is racist, but I'll provide two examples anyway.

1. I have a friend who lives there who thinks his "neighborhood is going to heck" because a black man moved in.

2. Per the locals, there are two Wal-Marts in town. Wal-Mart, and Wal-Martinez.

OMG LMAO now we have a new name for Wal Mart in our family to go with Tar-jays

[eon-krate32]

Seriously, Longmont is far and away from being 'perfect'. Every city has it's issues. Although I do have to agree with the fact that due to it's close proximity to all these different regions (thus becoming a hub of sorts) Longmont can't really define itself anymore and seems to be becoming another cookie-cutter city, however the addition of the Prospect area will certainly detract from that inevitability. But should the highly improbable happen and Longmont manages to sprout a skyline of some kind I don't see the city defining itself outside of mass retailing with a touch of high-tech.

But really, everyone has their good/bad experiences with any place on the planet, but from now on can we try to make them more personal instead of blanket statements? Because I guarantee that there will be something forgotten within the folds of the 'blanket' that nullifies it.

@ Aguilar
Wal-Martinez...LOLZ!!

[whoisjongalt]

I'd never even heard of Longmont until I read an article in Dwell magazine about Prospect. Then I actually moved there but, even though it WAS a really cool neighborhood, I was bored to tears. There was almost nothing to do which is ok if you like that suburbia thing but it wasn't for me. I ended up driving to Denver or Boulder to do everything so I finally moved to downtown Denver.

[eon-krate32]

Originally Posted by whoisjongalt

I'd never even heard of Longmont until I read an article in Dwell magazine about Prospect. Then I actually moved there but, even though it WAS a really cool neighborhood, I was bored to tears. There was almost nothing to do which is ok if you like that suburbia thing but it wasn't for me. I ended up driving to Denver or Boulder to do everything so I finally moved to downtown Denver.

And that's an issue that Longmont has due to being in the middle of EVERYTHING. Every other city gets the vast majority of all the new non-residential development while Longmont gets squat. This is partly due to the cruddy economy and nobody able to get finances from banks on their would-be properties in this city. At a city council meeting earlier this week I was talking to an official and they said that we had the possibility of a short high-rise but the financial backing failed and we lost it.

[Josseppie]

Longmont needs to develop some kind of tech park so it can attract companies as well. Do they have any open space where they can start one?