Highlands Ranch vs Louisville, CO? (Denver, Boulder: 2014, apartments, leasing agent)

[hts]

Looking to possibly relo to Denver next summer from Phoenix.

While we haven't completely narrowed it down to these two, they're definitely at the top of the list. Money mag has rated both very highly in terms of best places in the country to live for the past 4-5 years.

Both seem to be family-friendly. Louisville of course is closer to Boulder and appears to be a very small town. HR appears to be a very large MPC. We have 3 kids (12, 11, 8) and want them to attend the local public school (all 3 are currently in academically-rigorous charter schools). The two high schools I'm looking at are Monarch (Louisville) and ThunderRidge (HR).

Not too worried about job location at this point. Thoughts/experiences ref. quality of life and primary distinctions between these two communities?

[Idlewile]

Everyone is likely to be partial, but while I do think both HR and Louisville are very nice areas, my vote will always be Louisville. The proximity to both Denver and Boulder for things to do is difficult to beat. Top notch BVSD schools arguably considered the best alongside Cherry Creek, amazing views, a cute, real downtown, a nice sense of community, and everyday shopping a stone's throw away makes it one of my favorite towns in Colorado.

[davebarnes]

If you consider them to be equal, you might want to learn more about water.
Source of
and
rates.

[Bradburn1]

HR is very beige suburbia but also has a lot going for it, nice open spaces, lots of shops, good schools. It will have far more and less expensive housing choices than Louisville but they will all be of the standard cookie cutter variety.

Louisville is a charming small town with a great main street. Housing is more expensive. Totally different feel than HR.

[Augie Daugie]

Louisville.

[MountainK]

I'm not very familiar with Louisville, but HR has 8,200 acres of Backcountry space, so you don't need to go very far to see/hear elk bugling, to see bears (okay, maybe this is not always a good thing...just kidding,) have a campfire, go on a hay ride, send kids to day camp in the wilderness, etc. Check out hrcaonline.org for community information--it's very kid oriented (4 rec centers.) HR certainly isn't for everyone though.

[AceShopper]

If your focus is Monarch school in Louisville, please check the school boundary (unless you can get in via open enrollment). When we were looking for single family homes, most of the Louisville homes in that school boundary were pretty expensive. If you are okay with living in old town Superior (behind the box chain stores off McCaslin), that also falls under Monarch school boundary.

If you plan on renting, Horizons at Rock Creek in Superior and Grandview at Flatirons are two apartments within the school boundary.

We ended up in Superior and found Eldorado to be a wonderful K-8 option.

[dtnach]

hi, we moved to highlands ranch 3.5 years ago form nj and we LOVE it here!!! we have 3 kids too (around your kids ages) and there is sooo much for them to do here. they are in the public schools and love it!! i work at a fairly new charter school in highlands ranch and i love it there too. i have not been to louisville but hear that is a great place too. we couldn't be happier though with our decision to move to highlands ranch. good luck with your decision. if you need more info on hr feel free to send me a message!

[RockTheGlobe]

We moved to Highlands Ranch about five months ago from Los Angeles, and we're already looking at different areas in the Denver-Boulder area for when our lease expires (or possibly breaking early) because we're not fans of the area. But there are a lot of people who like it here.

HR has the nickname of "The Bubble," and it's well-deserved because it does seem to be its own little area, and pretty much everything you need is here and it's so far removed from downtown that people find it hard to leave. Within 5-10 minutes of our house are a Super Target, Home Depot, Petco, a 24-screen movie theater, King Sooper's, Safeway, Walgreens, FedEx Office, etc., so nothing is hard to find. Plus, if you have kids, the rec centers are really helpful to provide activities, and they also have workout centers and stuff like batting cages and indoor pools. Housing is cheap, though it does tend to move very quickly.

However, on the flip side, there is *zero* personality here -- it's all chain stores and mediocre chain restaurants, so if you're used to an area where you can get more than just national franchises, you will not appreciate it here. Denver proper is at least 25 minutes away by car (because the light rail won't extend down here until at least 2013 or 2014), and the housing is pretty much all tract homes... Many of the streets have just two or three models of houses that they just rotate through as you go down the street, with identical floorplans and layouts, and many are built cheaply. Getting in and out of HR is also a little difficult, since the main corridor is C-470, a two-lane-each-way highway that connects to I-25, and C-470 does tend to clog up during rush hour. (Or you can take city streets, but those tend to get a little crowded too and also take longer because of the traffic lights.)

Plus, depending on your political and religious leanings, you may not feel all that welcome, since there are churches all over the place, and Douglas County is fairly conservative (unlike the rest of the Denver metro, where the Denver Post says Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-to-1).

**EDITED TO ADD**
A couple of other things I forgot to mention... One is that most of the houses here in HR, with the exception of some of the older developments, have postage-stamp-sized yards, and all of the houses and yards have to be maintained strictly in accordance with some of the many, many regulations set forth by the Highlands Ranch Community Association. (Not exaggerating -- when we signed our lease, the leasing agent handed us a printout of the HRCA guidelines that was the size of a novel.)

Also, your opinions of HR may be colored by how open-minded you are... A gay couple moved in down the street from us and received a not-so-lovely welcome from some of the neighbors, including some slurs and invitations to leave.

[Katarina Witt]

http://www.louisvilleco.gov/Portals/...n/chapter2.pdf

Louisville’s water supply originates from three primary sources:
South Boulder Creek; Marshall Lake and the Northern Colorado
Water Conservancy District.

There is no problem with Louisville's water supply.

Re: Monarch High School's attendance area-you can check here:

School Finder

All of Superior is included in the MHS attendance area. Do not count, ever, on moving somewhere and open-enrolling outside your attendance area. Your child might get in, and s/he might not.

I have lived in Louisville for 30 years and we raised a family there. It's a great place to raise a family; lots of activities for kids, lots of festivals and the like, great community spirit.