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My thoughts exactly. I have not yet read an accurate post from ToeKnee yet. The Boise/Treasure Valley she describes is nothing like the one I've been living in for the past four years.
Perhaps a forum moderator needs to take a look....
I posted this today. . . "Downtown Boise is gorgeous - a truly beautiful city with a river that runs right through it - and the jewel in Boise's crown is the greenbelt that runs along that river. Downtown Boise is eye candy."
Does that ring accurate to you? Think a moderator should have a look?
I find the below quoted post a very accurate picture of my 5 yrs in Boise. Boise has it's good and it's bad. The worst for me are actually the posters on here. Folks who seem so insecure, that a different opinion then theirs, has them completely up in arms. Frankly I find it rather embarrassing. I want readers to know that my experience with folks in Boise did not reflect the immaturity I see so often on this forum.
And FWIW, I see a lot of accuracy from my personal experience in what Toe-Knee Baloney's written, though their handle is indeed quite peculiar . We welcome new posters and their personal experiences to the forum! That's what keeps this place going . And if you don't like what others have to say about their experience, at least be mature enough to disagree politely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunJunky
Take off your rose-colored glasses. This is a copy/paste from Sperling's Best Places, and is one of the best summaries I've ever read about Boise. . .
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Boise, the good the bad. - 12/14/2014
My wife, two kids (school age) and I have lived in Boise for about 11 years. My wife and I are very highly educated professional people. The people in Boise are generally very nice, some of nicest people I’ve known overall and I’ve lived all over the country. The parks are fantastic and the greenbelt along the river are outstanding, best in the country. A very fit town, lots of tri-athletes. The mountain biking is second to none and the road bike riding is huge here. The outdoors is very accessible, close by and lots of camping and fishing nearby. Housing is very affordable (for a reason). Now for the bad parts.
Wages in Idaho are very near the bottom, almost legendarily bad, more people on minimum wage than almost anywhere in the country. The wages for teachers are, I believe, THE lowest in the country. The state doesn’t give a damn about education and the legislature is constantly looking for ways to cut money for education. They seem to have almost a vendetta against teachers and public spending on education. At a higher level, the state university, Boise State, honestly is little more than a huge community college, not known for much. Sorry, it’s the truth.
The air quality is very bad both summer and winter. People are not exaggerating! It can be horrible. I’ve seen it where you can’t see a half mile down the road. Boise is in a valley and the smoke from summer fires, often from as far away as out of state, fill the bowl. Winters have a horrible inversion that traps pollution in a mix of toxic fog. Only place I’ve seen worse is extreme east Los Angeles around Redlands. When my children were very small we had to take them multiple times to the emergency room for breathing treatments. I remember because each trip cost me $500. I also remember multiple times I had to cancel a summer bike ride because my lungs and eyes burned so much.
The economy is based on very low wage retail and if you move here because of the inexpensive housing, beware, that this is because almost any job will have depressed wages from the national average. Boise never really recovered from the Great Recession. Don’t let the low unemployment rate lull you to sleep. Walmart and healthcare are the leading employers in the state. Many of the high tech jobs of the 1990’s have left. I have lost friends who were highly education professionals who moved away due to lack of jobs or pathetically low wages.
Lastly, the winter gloom. Boise is not at all sunny in the winter. It’s not like Colorado. Many people have a very hard time with seasonal depression here. By practical measures, Boise is not any colder than Denver but the winter gloom can be overwhelming. It really bothers many people especially people who grew up in sunny places.
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Boisefan and Vandal may be a bit of a curmudgeon at times but they do offer a valid opinion and good information even if it sometimes conflicts with Chamber of Commerce style narrative that is often pushed on City Data forums. It's refreshing at times because all too often these threads just turn into an echo-chamber of potential newcomers telling each other how great Boise is without any real experience to support it outside of their shared dislike for wherever they're trying to get away from.
Boise is a great town without a lot going for it, but it's naive to assume that it's perfect and any dissenting view is somehow tainted by bitterness and invalid.
Last edited by truckingbronco; 06-22-2015 at 10:42 AM..
Boisefan and Vandal may be a bit of a curmudgeon at times but they do offer a valid opinion and good information even if it sometimes conflicts with Chamber of Commerce style narrative that is often pushed on City Data forums. It's refreshing at times because all too often these threads just turn into an echo-chamber of potential newcomers telling each other how great Boise is without any real experience to support it outside of their shared dislike for wherever they're trying to get away from.
Boise is a great town without a lot going for it, but it's naive to assume that it's perfect and any dissenting view is somehow tainted by bitterness and invalid.
The issue, as I see it, is that several regulars, who have lived here for a long time (or all their lives) seem to focus only on the "bad" about Idaho. And quite often, those same regulars exaggerate. Whether their exaggeration is an attempt to make their point, or to discourage others from coming here, only they know.
As for me, I love it here and am more than happy to take the good, with the real (or perceived) bad. And *I* am the consummate realist!
Boisefan and Vandal may be a bit of a curmudgeon at times but they do offer a valid opinion and good information even if it sometimes conflicts with Chamber of Commerce style narrative that is often pushed on City Data forums. It's refreshing at times because all too often these threads just turn into an echo-chamber of potential newcomers telling each other how great Boise is without any real experience to support it outside of their shared dislike for wherever they're trying to get away from.
Boise is a great town without a lot going for it, but it's naive to assume that it's perfect and any dissenting view is somehow tainted by bitterness and invalid.
Edit: I meant to type "Boise is a great town with a lot going for it", not without.
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Good post!
. We welcome new posters and their personal experiences to the forum! That's what keeps this place going 
. And if you don't like what others have to say about their experience, at least be mature enough to disagree politely. 
