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To be perfectly frank, my issue is more that you want to spend up to $1 mil for a house (certainly not unheard of in Boulder), you want to send your kids to private schools or the elusive top-notch public schools, yet you don't want to be around "snobby" people. And snobby is in the eye of the beholder. I once heard someone in Boulder say of someone else "he doesn't even have a PhD". There are people that feel that their kids have to go to elite private colleges; I got some condescension from someone in Boulder about my daughter going to St. Olaf College in MN because a Lutheran college doesn't fit their definition of a "good" school, even though the average SAT there is > 1200. Etc.
Well, that person/people who are condescending are not me. And I'm looking to find other people who may be living in more expensive housing, who want great schools (who doesn't?) who are also not like that. And, as I've said before, I would be happy to spend less than $1Million. I was only giving my LIMIT.
I'm not totally sure that is true. Colorado, especially in the mountains, is a state littered with McMansions and showy "nouveau riche" types. A prolific poster on the Colorado forums, jazzlover, has passionately written dozens and dozens of posts about this subject. The keeping up with the joneses factor is certainly alive and well in Denver, too. People here are always trying to one-up their neighbors and friends with bigger houses, bigger cars (suvs), finished walkout basements with built in entertainment systems, granite countertops, trips to Europe, better looking husbands with more money (I've seen a LOT of divorces)... you name it! People in Denver drive all the BMW and Porsche convertibles that they drive in southern California-- maybe not when it's snowing, but when it's nice out. Point is, I think it all depends what part of town you live in. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any area in Denver that has million dollar homes that doesn't have a snob factor. Even gentrified old city neighborhoods like Washington Park can come across as quite snobby. On the other hand, places like Aurora, where I'm from, are fairly unsnobby for the most part. Until very recently, 1 million dollar homes in Aurora were unheard of.
Actually, the high school I went to (Smoky Hill) probably comes the closest to what you're describing. Great school, IMO. I'd say for the most part, ignoring a few outliers on both ends, it was a pretty solid middle class school. Half the school came from more lower-middle class neighborhoods in south/central Aurora, the other half came from middle of the road and upper middle class neighborhoods (including one neighborhood with homes that approach 1 million) in south Aurora and Centennial. A lot of ethnic and international diversity too, kids from all backgrounds. Because of the mix, there wasn't really much of a culture of snobbiness in the school itself. Not that it didn't exist, but it was cut down substantially. Absolutely nothing like Cherry Creek HS, that other school on the west side of the dam, quite possibly one of the snobbiest schools in the state. Cherry Creek is the kind of school where the students' parking lot looks better than the teachers'.
The fact that Smoky Hill is in "Aurora" right off the bat turns down a lot of people who snub their nose at the name of the city. Although there are a few McMansion neighborhoods that are part of the Smoky Hill attendance area which are very snobby neighborhoods IMO, especially among the adults. It's just that when their kids go to school, they seem to be able to integrate with the other kids more or less. At least that was my impression growing up. Nobody "needs" to live in a McMansion, at least assuming you don't have 10 kids and live with in-house servants; it's all about flaunting your wealth.
Thanks for this post. If the more expensive housing correlates pretty closely with snobby people in this area, then we may reduce what we want to spend. This is what I was trying to find out. And I'll look into Smoky Hill--sounds interesting. We have 3 children--two are white and one is black, so we certainly value diversity and there is no way I'll ever live in a McMansion. That's as far from what we're seeking as you can get!! Complete waste of space, resources, etc.
Lafayette may be another good location near Boulder. I don't know the ages of your kids. Centaurus High School is just starting its IB program, in the hopes of lifting up its rep a little. Prior to that, the only IB program in the Boulder Valley SD was at Fairview High in Boulder, which also has excellent music and theater programs. Fairveiw does have a reputation of being snobby (at least in the opinons of some people). Lafayette is a very diverse community, not like Boulder in ambience (no hippies, few college profs, etc). It does have a fairly large Hispanic population, and more low income housing than either Boulder or some of its other suburbs. There is also some high end housing, though I'm not sure if there's anything near $1million there. Louisville and Broomfield might work too. Those are some places near Boulder. Mind you, none of these places will have the ambience of Boulder. The only one of those to have a downtown is Louisville. Monarch High In Louisvillel, from which both of my kids graduated, has a reputation for being "preppy", 90+% of its students go on to college, etc. Not quite so snobby, though, IMO.
I'm from Phoenix originally (Scottsdale) but have lived in Colorado for 11 years, the last 4 in northern Denver, close to Boulder. As other people have pointed out, you are going to find snobbiness and emphasis on materialisim anywhere to some extent, but overall, I find (and other people I know who've moved from Phoenix--well Scottsdale in particular) I think people in Colorado are more laid back.
My neighborhood contains homes that span a wide price range (from low 200s to over 1 million), I have friends here on both ends of the price spectrum and there's no difference between them. Many people here are well off but you would never know it. People who move here are more interested in community, knowing their neighbors, and being friendly than with what kind of cars and things their neighbors own. I must say there is overarching interest however, in the architecture of each other's homes and improvements, only because people who live here are interested in design (on a house and a neighborhood scale), but it's not a competition thing, people often work together here on home improvements. I help many neighbors with flowers and landscaping, and other neighbors have helped me with with their areas of expertise, like installing new porch lights, new fence gates etc...
My best friend recently moved to Denver from Scottsdale where she's lived for the past 10 years and she commented to me how different people are here, how more laid back it is.
I think Denver and Boulder are great places to raise kids, I chose it for my own child over Phoenix. I miss the desert, but Phoenix is a sprawling, car dependant mess now with acre after acre of beige adobe identical homes, big box strip malls and very little character. Denver has areas like that, but it also has many charming, walkable neighborhoods (both old and new like mine) that Phoenix sadly lacks.
Last edited by Bradburn1; 05-26-2008 at 01:51 PM..
I'm a native of Boulder and I love bringing up my children here. There is always something to do, there are lots of other families, and it feels happy here. We never have to stay inside (although there are plenty of fun things to do inside).
As for snobbery, of course it is here, but I think you have to look for it, at least the O.C. variety. This is a university town and a fitness town. People are much more concerned with your academic/professional credentials and what your body can do than they are your fiscal bottom line. For all that people criticize Boulder for being shallow and showy, the things that people here care the most about are accomplishments.
You might like my neighborhood, Newlands, but I think you would be even happier in the area surrounding Flatirons school (although the public school that would suit you best is probably Mesa or Bear Creek). We have several very nice private schools, but I don't know what you mean by "progressive teaching." Our public schools are mostly very good, some excellent, and we have some terrific charter choices.
I disagree about Bear Creek and Mesa Elem. While they are both very good schools, they are probably two of the least diverse in all of Boulder. Don't get me wrong, I would totally send my kids there, but the teaching is pretty traditional and I'm not sure that's what the OP wants for in a school. I would look into Whittier Elementary or BCSIS as two starting points if in fact you want public schools. Boulder Valley schools are great as a whole, but there are a lot of differences among the schools and what would suit one person may not suit the next.
I disagree about Bear Creek and Mesa Elem. While they are both very good schools, they are probably two of the least diverse in all of Boulder. Don't get me wrong, I would totally send my kids there, but the teaching is pretty traditional and I'm not sure that's what the OP wants for in a school. I would look into Whittier Elementary or BCSIS as two starting points if in fact you want public schools. Boulder Valley schools are great as a whole, but there are a lot of differences among the schools and what would suit one person may not suit the next.
Well, what the OP really wants is a private school, and to live in an area with an academically sound public school with excellent music/arts. Mesa and Bear Creek are high achieving schools, and Mesa wins awards for its arts. Whittier is extremely chaotic. BCSIS isn't a neighborhood school, so I wasn't thinking of it, but it might be something the OP would like. I think they incorporate a fair amount of Montessori method, however, which OP does not want. OP values diversity, but didn't seek it in a school. Boulder itself is not very diverse.
BCSIS stands for Boulder Community School of Integrated Studies. As I understand it, and I am by no means an expert about this school, it has a large arts focus. You know, study about the Civil War and make a diorama. That kind of thing. We have some neighbors who are somewhat arty whose kids go there. Actually, just read their profile, it's a "Rudolf Steiner" and Waldorf style of curriculum. Not terribly diverse, but as Tropicana Rose says, Boulder is not very diverse.
School Profile Page - Boulder Valley School District (http://content.bvsd.org/scripts/profilepage.asp?numsch=161&level=elem - broken link)
Denver or Phoenix? Look at the kinds of people on each forum!
Frogandtoad, you should hear the kind of garbage spewing from the mouths of people on the Phoenix forum in the past few days on the thread you started there, Phoenix or Colorado??, and on a recently revived thread, "Denver vs. Phoenix." There are at least a half dozen people on that forum who hate Denver and Boulder with a passion, for some weird reason I can't figure out why. In one of the haters' latest posts, they're calling Boulder an evangelical hotbed. For example, one poster there just said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by azriverfan
I would much rather live in Phoenix than a place that is literrally surrounded by evangelicals like Boulder. What are you going to do: confine yourself to Boulder or Chapel Hill? Phoenix does not have the same level right-wing evangelical influence that the Denver-Boulder area has. There is a reason there are so many public tele-evangelists and large Baptist churches and schools like Colorado Christian University in the greater Denver area. The valley has a significant Mormon population but unlike evangelicals, they don't push their views on you and are much more tolerant in general.
Actually, that poster sounds quite restrained compared to some of the crap I've heard lately. I'm not sure where that poster gets his ideas, but they're so off the wall they're not even worth responding too. I've all but decided to quit reading the Phoenix forum once and for all. If the character of the people you meet on these online forums is any indicator, I think it's pretty obvious which city is the better choice.
The OP mentioned that "It does seem like people don't like that I can afford to spend $1Million. Like there's a backlash kind of."
I didn't read anything here that implied that in any way. If anything, the average member here does not like that they themselves -- cannot afford to spend a million on a house, do need to be obsessed with making money, cannot have only the premium schools for their kids. In fact, I sense an air of snobbiness in the quote that I cited.
One solution for the original question is to buy a nice $400 k house in each city, compare the cities, and still have $200 k left over.
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Denver or Phoenix? Look at the kinds of people on each forum!
