Louisville, CO, on the Best Places to Live Lists (Denver: townhome, unemployment rate)

[ZomZom]

Having Vienna, VA on that list completely invalidates it for me.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by suzco

Boulder next door, and Denver down the road (and the economy and jobs and international airport and such that go with that).

Makes sense. But a bedroom community will tend to have a different flavor than a free standing town, where most of the residents work in town. I guess I am a bit more used to the latter, when I think about towns. In any case, I enjoyed the area. Great scenery and hiking everywhere. My cup 'o tea.

[senortim]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

I was just there today. I think it seemed pretty nice. But the hype seems a bit overblown. I think my hometown of Ashland, OR beats it handily for charm,character, scenery, etc. It seems nice, but not amazingly so. I'd have no problem living there, but it did not really blow my socks off. That is, if I could afford it. I saw one house for sale, a 1600sf cottage listed for $750k! Where does that kind of money come from in such a small town? I actually think those sorts of rankings only help the real estate industry.

Personally, I like Moscow, Idaho better. Same size, more bucolic, much more affordable. What am I missing?

You're not missing anything. Overblown is exactly the right statement. It is small town (<50k), so that would exclude places like say Castle Rock or Centennial. It is small and relatively affluent, so they have the benefits of that - better health, lower crime, good schools. It also has a handful of good restaurants in the downtown. However, the downtown is filled with yuppies wanting to avoid Boulder and all the better restaurants and entertainment there. That downtown is really the only place that separates it from the other bedroom communities nearby. The rest of Louisville is just suburbs that seem no better or worse than the nearby towns like Erie, Superior, or Broomfield. And the problem is close to downtown is just crazy expensive with a lot of small and junky homes. In addition, the noise and nightlife downtown is annoying the people who live there.

Louisville: A victim of its own success? - Boulder Daily Camera

And there is this guy:

Originally Posted by ledjar

I've been living in fort collins for the last couple years and drove down to seem my mom in louisville and i was surprised at just how many businesses have closed down... major ones too. The safeway on south boulder is gone and all of a sudden the 7-11 in louisville disappeared, as far as i know that was the last 24/7 place in Louisville. Many of the shops that used to be in the strip malls around town are gone as well, its crazy.

Apparently the recession has crushed this poor city.

I think most people who visit or look to buy in Louisville think what you think - overblown.

[Fiddlehead]

Ok. I don't want to trash anyone's town, just saying I didn't see anything super special. Boulder blew me away actually, such amazing scenery and amenities. I knew it was gentrified and overpriced, but at least I can see why.

Yea, the strip malls and tract homes in Louiseville seemed pretty similar to places where my brother lived for years (in S. Cal and later Superior, CO.). Looked like it had a nice rec. center though.

The problem from my perspective is that it seems surprisingly hard to find places to live that are nice, but still affordable, in the West. If a place is even a little nice, it gets marketed as some utopia, and the equity nomads invade. Ashland, Bozeman, Durango, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Boulder, Louiseville, Jackson, Bend, Missoula, etc., etc., etc. Folks from the coasts roll in and pay cash, outgunning local workers for housing.

When I think of Idyllic Towns, I think this:

http://www.brattleboro.org/

(I've never been there, so have no clue, but just an example...)

[Katarina Witt]

Seriously, it's best not to comment on places you've never been.

Louisville is different than Superior b/c it has more history. Superior had virtually no stores, not even a grocery until maybe 25 years ago. It was a little coal patch (near the Superior Marketplace) that was running out of water. The town govt. made a deal with Richmond Homes to allow them to annex and build in exchange for water development. See this article from 1999.
The Denver Post Online - News

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Seriously, it's best not to comment on places you've never been.

Louisville is different than Superior b/c it has more history. Superior had virtually no stores, not even a grocery until maybe 25 years ago. It was a little coal patch (near the Superior Marketplace) that was running out of water. The town govt. made a deal with Richmond Homes to allow them to annex and build in exchange for water development. See this article from 1999.
The Denver Post Online - News

I have been to Louisville. Yesterday. And I attended a wedding there last year (dear niece married into a long-established Italian family there-pretty cool). I thought it nice then and now. I was just commenting on the tract homes being nondescript, which they are. And my brother lived in Superior for 15 years, so my impressions are not totally uninformed. I would consider living in Louisville, but it did not seem to scream the best town in the USA to me. That is not intended as an insult.

I am not saying anything about Brattleboro, except it seem more like what numero uno would look like to me.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

I have been to Louisville. Yesterday. And I attended a wedding there last year (dear niece married into a long-established Italian family there-pretty cool). I thought it nice then and now. I was just commenting on the tract homes being nondescript, which they are. And my brother lived in Superior for 15 years, so my impressions are not totally uninformed. I would consider living in Louisville, but it did not seem to scream the best town in the USA to me. That is not intended as an insult.

I am not saying anything about Brattleboro, except it seem more like what numero uno would look like to me.

I was talking about Brattleboro, not Louisville when I said "best not to comment on places you've never been". Some of those New England towns are just *too* precious, IMO. Anyway, CNN's methodology takes into account diversity, housing prices, etc. You're not going to get quaint housing at affordable prices anywhere in metro Denver. You will note also that their top 50 towns are all over the US. So you're not going to get 48 in New England and two elsewhere, or whatever. It's just entertainment, anyway.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I was talking about Brattleboro, not Louisville when I said "best not to comment on places you've never been". Some of those New England towns are just *too* precious, IMO. Anyway, CNN's methodology takes into account diversity, housing prices, etc. You're not going to get quaint housing at affordable prices anywhere in metro Denver. You will note also that their top 50 towns are all over the US. So you're not going to get 48 in New England and two elsewhere, or whatever. It's just entertainment, anyway.

Ok. I have never been to Brattleboro. It just seemed kind of idyllic. I will say, I really like the view from the west edge of Louisville (McCaslin street?). Just the right distance to see the prairie foreground, the Flatirons, and the big peaks behind.

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

I was just there today. I think it seemed pretty nice. But the hype seems a bit overblown. I think my hometown of Ashland, OR beats it handily for charm,character, scenery, etc. It seems nice, but not amazingly so. I'd have no problem living there, but it did not really blow my socks off. That is, if I could afford it. I saw one house for sale, a 1600sf cottage listed for $750k! Where does that kind of money come from in such a small town? I actually think those sorts of rankings only help the real estate industry.

Personally, I like Moscow, Idaho better. Same size, more bucolic, much more affordable. What am I missing?

Sunshine.

This Colorado native spent a year in Moscow, Idaho once and it started drizzling non stop with plenty of clouds and no sun at the end of September. By the beginning of November the drizzle turned to sleet and icey rain - still not a break in the clouds. By December I was I crying every morning on my way to work on glaze ice roads with my wipers scraping uselessly on the freezing rain falling on my windshield. March saw me achieve a state of near psychotic break. I would walk the streets of Moscow until 2 am in the morning, always heading back toward the direction of Colorado - so far away. I would walk through the drizzle until exhaustion forced me to turn back and sleep for a couple of hours. I could never get warm and I think I saw the sun briefly through the clouds maybe twice between September and June. By June the sun returned, but I wasn't fooled. I knew it would vanish again any moment.

So I gave them my resignation at the University of Idaho and vanished myself, heading for the Colorado line driving as fast as I possibly could and stopping only for gas. I was never so happy in my life as when I drove over Wolf Creek and home into Durango. Thank God!

You can have Moscow. No thanks, NEVER again.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Sunshine.

This Colorado native spent a year in Moscow, Idaho once and it started drizzling non stop with plenty of clouds and no sun at the end of September. By the beginning of November the drizzle turned to sleet and icey rain - still not a break in the clouds. By December I was I crying every morning on my way to work on glaze ice roads with my wipers scraping uselessly on the freezing rain falling on my windshield. March saw me achieve a state of near psychotic break. I would walk the streets of Moscow until 2 am in the morning, always heading back toward the direction of Colorado - so far away. I would walk through the drizzle until exhaustion forced me to turn back and sleep for a couple of hours. I could never get warm and I think I saw the sun briefly through the clouds maybe twice between September and June. By June the sun returned, but I wasn't fooled. I knew it would vanish again any moment.

So I gave them my resignation at the University of Idaho and vanished myself, heading for the Colorado line driving as fast as I possibly could and stopping only for gas. I was never so happy in my life as when I drove over Wolf Creek and home into Durango. Thank God!

You can have Moscow. No thanks, NEVER again.

Wow, best description of SAD I have read. Yes N. Idaho is not for everyone, that is for sure. I love the PNW, but I must admit, I liked those sunny Colorado winters a lot. My wife seems immune to SAD, but I definitely start climbing the walls sometimes when the rain runs on for the third straight week.