Where do professionals live in Denver? (Arvada, Boulder: condos, houses, neighborhoods)

[Guineas]

The Denver suburbs are nice and clean, but they seem like the standard suburban sprawl, like Plano TX north of Dallas. We've lived in Chicago and Boston so more used to tree-lined walkable neighborhoods with nearby local restaurants and eateries.

What neighborhood of the city do well-off professionals with a couple of toddlers/elementary school aged kids live? Not looking for downtown condos. Are there any good schools in the city or is private school the choice for most who can afford it?

We are a two income household, household income about $500k. Our current home near Boston is around $550k, but very small. Thanks!

[Augie Daugie]

There are some great options within the City of Denver with walkable amenities, tree lined streets, and beautiful brick homes with nice yards. Some neighborhoods to check out include Wash Park, Park Hill, Hilltop, Congress Park, and Montclair are a few that come to mind.

[SkyDog77]

It sounds like you are describing my neighborhood.

[cowboyxjon]

The neighborhoods mentioned above are worth checking out, but I would also add Bonnie Brae, Cory-Merrill, and Observatory Park to the list. I think there are a lot of good choices that meet this criteria.

Also, don't write off ALL of the suburbs. Golden may be worth a look as well, depending on your job situation.

[2bindenver]

Find the school, the neighborhood will be close. Other locations might be Cherry Hills Village, Greenwood Village, Lone Tree, Boulder....

Where is work?

[davebarnes]

Give us job locations and kids' ages and we will provide lots of opinions/options.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Give us job locations and kids' ages and we will provide lots of opinions/options.

Yes, we're very opinionated!

Louisville/Lafayette would work if you could live 35-45 min from downtown Denver.

[goofygrin]

Hmm. The only suburb that really reminds me of Plano is Highlands Ranch...

I second some of the other suggestions and I'd add Stapleton and maybe downtown Arvada and Parker depending on where work is/budget.

[10-23]

If your annual household income is $500K, look in Greenwood Village or Cherry Creek. They look nothing like most of what I've seen of Plano, but they have gorgeous homes.

[blueberrypirate]

Look at the eastern neighborhoods: Congress Park and the area around Cheesman Park or immediately south of it (north Country Club area) will be the easiest walking distance to restaurants and stores, etc. Park Hill, Washington Park, Montclair all have nice old houses and mature treescapes but it's harder to walk directly to retail, although there are little stores and restaurants around. Hilltop has a mix of newer and older houses and a small in-neighborhood retail area but has some outstanding schools. Stapleton is kind of a middle ground--it's clearly a newer planned community, but they did an intelligent job with the green space and the retail and there are tons of young families. If the yards were bigger I'd live there happily, although it will be another 10+ years before the trees are really big enough to call the streets "tree-lined".

There are some excellent public elementary schools in the Denver school district and your income would likely give you the budget to live in the zoned neighborhood for any of them. The names that come up a lot are Steck and Carson (Hilltop), Bromwell (Cheesman Park), Park Hill (Park Hill), Steele and Lincoln (Wash Park) and I'm hearing good things about Teller (Congress Park) from parents although I don't think the test scores are quite as high as at the others. The elementary schools in Stapleton are also well regarded. DPS also has quite a few G&T magnet programs and some good charter schools. There are also some fantastic private schools.