From Hawaii to Colorado

[cybertwit99]

Originally Posted by Tom Emmerling

Hmmmm well, look at the crime rate stats on this website. I think Aurora is second to the highest murder capita in the state just under Denver.

Now THAT worries me. I haven't seen the stats on this site, but I found some stats elsewhere from 2003 and did indeed notice how high the murder rate is. I also notice rape is pretty high too. I did a comparison to Honolulu's rates and Honolulu's are much lower for a significantly larger city than Aurora.

So the elevated murder rate trend continues?

[cybertwit99]

To everyone who has responded with feedback regarding Aurora, I enlisted my aunt to read the posts here as I couldn't reconcile what I knew about Aurora from her vs what I was hearing on this thread (most of which was pretty discouraging because I wanted all glowing reviews of what will likely be the area we move to). Here is what my aunt shared this morning:

"We are actually Centennial bordering on far south Aurora with new areas all around us with houses ranging from the mid $200,000 up to "low" $500,000 and ranchettes going much higher. We are Cherry Creek school DISTRICT, not Cherry Creek residential area where the homes are in the millions. The bad areas (I love the euphemism--make that poorer) are north Aurora. Denver schools struggle so you want to stay out of that district too. Raytheon is right in the middle of Aurora so you would want to live south of it. You could contact the Cherry Creek schools to see about services and also to check the geographical boundaries. Check out Peakview Elementary school. That's the public school down the road from us that the entire neighborhood has sent kids to. I don't know where they are getting the idea of no diversity. There are two African-American families, and one half-Hispanic (the wife) on our short little street. There's a family from Hawaii a few streets away. Admittedly, though, most of the diversity will be Hispanic, although there is a fairly good sized Asian population centered around south Federal Ave. We are in the area south of Buckley Air Force Base, so we may be more diverse than other areas. Thornton is way up north and older. Longmont is up by Boulder where the U of Colorado is--and that area is pretty but very pricey. Anything around Boulder will be pricey. Plus it's about a 45 minute drive on highly congested freeways from Denver, let alone from Raytheon, which is south of I-70."

and this link regarding crime statistics (I used this same site to look at crime rates in Aurora and it was NOT a nice picture):
Moderator cut: link removed

I'd like to invite anyone and everyone to weigh in on Centennial as well as their experiences with schools, particularly SpEd programs.

So sorry for the error!

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by cybertwit99

What areas of Aurora are the bad ones? What about Centennial - is that better? Is there a lot of gang activity in Aurora?

Crime-wise, the older parts of Aurora tend to be worse. Those tend to be to north and west parts of Aurora. That said, about 3 years ago a friend of mine who lived in the "nice" part of Aurora in a $200K+ townhouse came home for a quick 15 minute lunch. He made the mistake of leaving his garage door open with his keys in his pickup (parked IN the garage). While he was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen, someone stole his brand new pickup out of the garage in broad daylight--not 15 feet from where was sitting. As far as I know, he never got it back. To top it all off, when he called the police, they told him it would be evening before they could get a detective there to take his report--auto thefts were not a "high priority" crime. He's since moved.

[Katiana]

You can find a lot of school information by googling the school districts you are interested in. You will get the SD's website and can look up boundaries, etc. You can also usually get diversity information on these sites. I find them a good source of concrete information, more reliable than word of mouth on certain topics, such as diversity.

[Second-hand lion]

I registered just so I could post a counter comment.

I've lived in Aurora for over ten years. When I bought my house a couple years ago, I elected to stay in Aurora. I live in a nice, quiet residential area, and I like where I live. Some areas are dicey, but that's true of every city, everywhere. Of course there's crime in Aurora. And there isn't crime in Denver, Littleton, Colorado Springs, Broomfield?

Travel from Aurora to anywhere in the Denver metro area isn't a problem, whether by car or mass transit. Homes in Aurora are a lot cheaper than they are elsewhere. What you would spend on a 2-bedroom house in Denver could practically buy a mansion in parts of Aurora.

Aurora has the same problems as Lakewood, Englewood, Thornton, and all the other cities around Denver in that it'll never get away from being a suburb of Denver, even though Aurora's nearly as big as Denver. Aurora's about 300,000, whereas Denver's around 500,000.

Give Aurora the benefit of the doubt before you dismiss it. You may decide you want to live here. You may decide that you prefer to live somewhere else, too. That's fine.

[teresavazquez]

Do any of you know about the Montbello Civic Center Park?
What kind of neighbourhood is where there is a street called 4500 Crown Boulevard ?
Any idea? THe school I am going to work at is Mc GLone Elementary School.
I would appreciate opinions and suggestions. thanks.