Moving from Chattanooga Tn to Colorado (Denver, Colorado Springs: appointed, best city, 2014)

[chattaman]

Hello all, my wife and I are considering a move to Coloradofrom Chattanooga Tn. We are planning a trip in June and I wouldn’t mind gettingsome local Coloradoans opinion. I know Chattanooga isn’t the best city inAmerica but it’s a pretty great place to live. We have lots of outdooractivities and plenty of things to do with our children. Our children are 3 ½ and8 months. Chattanooga has the fastest internet in the country which is a hugeplus for me. The whole place runs on fiber.

The downtown area has been renovated over last 20 years andit is a little city. Population of around 170,000. I love it here but I’vealways wanted to live out west. I spent a couple of summers working inYellowstone National Park and fell in love with the Rockies.

All that being said, I would appreciate any opinions on comparablecities to raise children in that also offer a variety of cultural andentertainment activities for my wife and me as well. I love to trout fish and this place sucks for that. It's at least 1 1/2 hours away from any trout waters and that's tail water. We love to hike but we alsoenjoy walks around the city. We’d like it to be a nice looking city, I mean whyleave a nice clean city and move to a dump. We want a safe place that hasquality schools, we’ll be sending them to a private school.

We've been looking at info Pueblo, Fort Collins, Grand Junction and Aurora so we're pretty open. Again any opinions will be helpful.

[chattaman]

I guess I should add we'll be renting for the first year then plan on buying. We're libertarian leaning in our mid 30s. We'll be looking for new jobs once we've settled on a general area. We're both educated professionals.

[davebarnes]

Note: the recent drop in Denver prices is a reflection of mix and not overall declining prices. The forecast for Denver is 6+% this year.

The rental market is tight and rents are increasing.
Colorado Division of Housing: Apartment Vacancies Rise With New Apartments in 2013's Fourth Quarter

[chattaman]

Thanks for the reply. Home prices and cost of living are definitely some of the things that make Chattanooga a great place to live. It's also one of the reasons we're not really looking at Denver.

[Teckeeee]

Aurora is just east of Denver, part of Denver Metro so Dave's post is correct, in that sense. You should drive around. I just moved back from Denver Metro, for family and better job opportunities. Make sure you have a job lined up before making the move. The difference between Pueblo and Fort Collins, almost opposite ends. Pueblo, brown, dry, and mostly blue collar not so in Fort Collins, save the brown and dusty in wintertime. Grand Junction has nothing to do with any of the other cities except that it's in Colorado.

[chattaman]

We'd like to find an area in the $200,000 range although, that could go up depending on the employment opportunities. We're more concerned with finding the right area for our children. A community feel with side walks, low crime rates, quality schools. Not to conservative but not to liberal. We want a greener environment so I guess Pueblo may be out.

How's the traffic in Aurora? With it being so close to Denver I'm guessing like rush hour could be bad.

I know I can get a lot of this from other websites and will do a lot of research over the next couple of moths but I always like to get a locals opinion.

[delta07]

Originally Posted by chattaman

We'd like to find an area in the $200,000 range although, that could go up depending on the employment opportunities. We're more concerned with finding the right area for our children. A community feel with side walks, low crime rates, quality schools. Not to conservative but not to liberal. We want a greener environment so I guess Pueblo may be out.

How's the traffic in Aurora? With it being so close to Denver I'm guessing like rush hour could be bad.

I know I can get a lot of this from other websites and will do a lot of research over the next couple of moths but I always like to get a locals opinion.

Personally, if you want a nice looking city, you will be unhappy in Aurora. It's basically a very large suburb of Denver. It doesn't really have much of it's own city character unless you go to old Aurora (north) but then I don't really consider that safe. I grew up in Aurora and would never go back there.

Also, if you are wanting a greener environment, I don't think you will find that in Colorado unless you are looking in the mountains. It will be vastly different from Tennessee.

For your budget and desire, perhaps consider Colorado Springs. It's lower cost of living and proximity to the mountains for greenery make it a strong contender. It's more conservative than Denver, for sure, but it's still Libertarian leaning.

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by chattaman

We'd like to find an area in the $200,000 range although, that could go up depending on the employment opportunities. We're more concerned with finding the right area for our children. A community feel with side walks, low crime rates, quality schools. We want a greener environment so I guess Pueblo may be out.

How's the traffic in Aurora? With it being so close to Denver I'm guessing like rush hour could be bad.

Teckeee is right. Aurora is just the east part of Denver for all intents and purposes. The traffic there is as bad as the traffic in any other part of Denver. Also if you want a greener environment then Grand Junction, as well as Pueblo is out. GJ is a small city with an arid high desert climate which will take no small amount of adjustment after having lived in Chattanoga. My family is originally from southeastern Kentucky (I'm the black sheep daughter of a black sheep parent who left the South for Colorado), so I know where-of I speak. Consider this: There are no lightening bugs in Colorado. You cannot grow a proper tomato here and people are beginning to look at blue grass lawns with outright disdain because they use up too much precious water. Little kids get nose bleeds all the time here until they adjust to the dry air. I certainly did when I moved here with my folks at age five. It snows here a lot more than you may have ever imagined. I've known it to snow as soon as Labor Day weekend and as late as mid May, and that's just on the Front Range. Plus, a nice community with affordable housing and decent schools (private or otherwise) by definition is going to be at least an hour and a half or more from a good trout stream. Check out some of the Colorado trout fishing blogs if you don't believe me. Please don't try to recreate the experience you had in a National Park in Wyoming for a couple of summers when you were probably still single by moving with your family to a city in Colorado. I'm afraid you'll only end up disappointed.

[Josseppie]

You might like Pueblo. Its about the same size and has cultural activities and fishing close by. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

[chattaman]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Teckeee is right. Aurora is just the east part of Denver for all intents and purposes. The traffic there is as bad as the traffic in any other part of Denver. Also if you want a greener environment then Grand Junction, as well as Pueblo is out. GJ is a small city with an arid high desert climate which will take no small amount of adjustment after having lived in Chattanoga. My family is originally from southeastern Kentucky (I'm the black sheep daughter of a black sheep parent who left the South for Colorado), so I know where-of I speak. Consider this: There are no lightening bugs in Colorado. You cannot grow a proper tomato here and people are beginning to look at blue grass lawns with outright disdain because they use up too much precious water. Little kids get nose bleeds all the time here until they adjust to the dry air. I certainly did when I moved here with my folks at age five. It snows here a lot more than you may have ever imagined. I've known it to snow as soon as Labor Day weekend and as late as mid May, and that's just on the Front Range. Plus, a nice community with affordable housing and decent schools (private or otherwise) by definition is going to be at least an hour and a half or more from a good trout stream. Check out some of the Colorado trout fishing blogs if you don't believe me. Please don't try to recreate the experience you had in a National Park in Wyoming for a couple of summers when you were probably still single by moving with your family to a city in Colorado. I'm afraid you'll only end up disappointed.

Thanks for the info. I don't grow tomatoes and I hate mowing my yard. The humidity here is brutal and I had nose bleeds until I was 10 or 11, anytime I got really hot from playing. I'm not trying to recreate my YNP experience, we're wanting a change and Colorado is the only place we agree on. We've been toying with the idea for about a year and the only reason we've stayed here this long is our family ties.

We'll be going out in June to make sure it's what we want before we start the moving process. I'd hoped there may be somewhere closer to a trout stream without being in the mountains but that's not a deal breaker.