So-called "snootiness" of Boulder (Denver, Colorado Springs: good schools, living, restaurants)
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If you want to get an idea of what Boulder people are like, pull up the Daily Camera and look at the comments about Longmont.
People in Boulder are snotty. You won't notice it at first, but I've lived here more than ten years. It's changed I think in that time. Or maybe I have! Lol. Seriously though, I think it has changed because too many people comment on Boulder people's superior attitude. They all think they are real estate geniuses and it entitled them to run everyone else down! People in Boulder are particularly unkind to the suburbs where people have to work for a living-longmont, louisville, lyons and niwot! If you're not a trust fund hippie, you are looked down on in Boulder. If you've got money, people will really like you here.
If you want to get an idea of what Boulder people are like, pull up the Daily Camera and look at the comments about Longmont.
People in Boulder are snotty. You won't notice it at first, but I've lived here more than ten years. It's changed I think in that time. Or maybe I have! Lol. Seriously though, I think it has changed because too many people comment on Boulder people's superior attitude. They all think they are real estate geniuses and it entitled them to run everyone else down! People in Boulder are particularly unkind to the suburbs where people have to work for a living-longmont, louisville, lyons and niwot! If you're not a trust fund hippie, you are looked down on in Boulder. If you've got money, people will really like you here.
It has changed in Boulder quite a bit over the last decade;I recently moved back to town after an extended absence. I am living here temporarily while I rework a real estate portfollio,probably for the next six to eight months. I just moved back here from the Cherry Creek North area of Denver. I watched that neighborhood change much in the same way.While Boulder can be a bit snotty;it's tame in comparison to the uber expensive CCN area in Denver. I have gotten used to that though,and maintain many friends in that neighborhood in which I will return to soon.
My point is that the whole front range is currently changing in this direction..In my view growing up in both Denver/Boulder they are both becoming more alike..but yes every morning I log onto the Daily Camera for my morning read..and the below comments are pretty consistant by the Boulder crowd things like: this **** happen in Methmont ect.
The Central Denver crowd often maintain a bit of hubris/and can be cold hearted towards the suburbanites as well....not a lotta love for places like Highlands Ranch,Aurora..stuff like that...No doubt about it though..I get you & I see first hand Boulder has CHANGED..not all for the better..still it's a gorgeous town with a setting that's hard to replace..
It has changed in Boulder quite a bit over the last decade;I recently moved back to town after an extended absence. I am living here temporarily while I rework a real estate portfollio,probably for the next six to eight months. I just moved back here from the Cherry Creek North area of Denver. I watched that neighborhood change much in the same way.While Boulder can be a bit snotty;it's tame in comparison to the uber expensive CCN area in Denver. I have gotten used to that though,and maintain many friends in that neighborhood in which I will return to soon.
My point is that the whole front range is currently changing in this direction..In my view growing up in both Denver/Boulder they are both becoming more alike..but yes every morning I log onto the Daily Camera for my morning read..and the below comments are pretty consistant by the Boulder crowd things like: this **** happen in Methmont ect.
The Central Denver crowd often maintain a bit of hubris/and can be cold hearted towards the suburbanites as well....not a lotta love for places like Highlands Ranch,Aurora..stuff like that...No doubt about it though..I get you & I see first hand Boulder has CHANGED..not all for the better..still it's a gorgeous town with a setting that's hard to replace..
******
I know. It's the same people over and over again and it does nothing for the reputation of the city (the comments). It ends up making us look like we are exactly everything people think we are here. My favorite comment was a couple of months back someone wrote along the lines that "you (people) should just admit you are trash and crawl back to your sad little town and carve out whatever sad existence you can in a town like Longmont." Someone named snoqualimous wrote it. But the fact that the Camera seems to tacitly support such commentary is another matter all together. When they first wrote about a little Longmont Bakery called Little Fig last year they opened the article with the line "The crackers are in Longmont" (cracker meaning white trash if you've never heard the term before. Little Fig baked handcrafted crackers.) They ended up closing last month because they couldn't sustain the business. The commentors about the closing said the trash in "methmont" couldn't understand gourmet food though the Little Fig mostly sells at Farmer's Market.
I miss some of the funky hippie mellowness of Boulder just a few years back. I'm amazed at how quickly it disappeared.
My family was living in Boulder for the past year and a half, we rented at an apartment complex. We found a nice neighborhood in Longmont and bought a house. A few days before our closing one of our neighbors commented to me "Hey, I hear you're moving to Longtucky!"
This guy has nothing to be snooty about, I can assure you, but the superior attitude exists for so many people. He truly felt that we were moving 'down' by buying in Longmont 10 miles up the road. Our neighborhood in Longmont is nicer than where we were in Boulder, our neighbors are frendlier, we have twice the space and a gorgeous back yard for my kids to play in. Loads of people think because your address says 'Boulder' that it's somehow, better. I guess it depends where your priorities are.
... In Boulder feel this way, but I definitely agree that the typical gang of posters on Daily Camera's site can be super venomous. Strangely, it does seem to be pretty much the same group of posters on that site, with an occasional newbie, but since I don't read it very often, I could be wrong about that.
We've lived in Evergreen, Breckenridge, and now Boulder, and we maintain relationships with family and friends in the towns we used to reside in, in other states and even countries, as well as having good friends in Boulder, Denver, Longmont and louisville. This group comes from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, but none of our friends are "snotty" or behave as though they are superior to others. In fact, out of our whole group of friends, the doctor that lives in Longmont could easily come across as "snotty", but he's not. He's just more socially cautious and aloof, actually because he's just simply more of an introvert who takes his time getting to know people.
Generalizations are best taken for what they are.
I miss some of the funky hippie mellowness of Boulder just a few years back. I'm amazed at how quickly it disappeared.
I even miss when young professionals lived here and you saw them bicycling around with their kids on the bike trails! I think you get this unfortunately with some of the uber-"liberal." My boss even reminds me that "middle class people shouldn't live in Boulder" and he's (of course) a proud liberal. There's even a guy here who lives in public housing and is a self-styled "activist" (coming to City Council in boxers, for example) and he claimed Boulder is better than other communities!
Is Boulder snooty? I think it's just acquired some of the characteristics of upper-middle-class suburban America - the feeling that I want to live only among people of my class & ilk in a place with well-controlled quality of life and nothing unpredictable. I'm sure you get this other places, although Boulder adds to it the "liberal" tint.
I think part of the "snootiness" probably comes from the fact that Boulder used to be a progressive hippy town when other area towns were decidedly suburban or conservative. Its true for example that Boulder has many more "good" restaurants compared to Longmont, but then again Boulder can't hold a candle to Denver in this regard. As for things like bike trails, Longmont is quickly catching up to Boulder.
On a person-to-person basis I haven't found Boulder-ites to be snooty, more just appreciative of what Boulder has to offer (beautiful open space, a small reservoir with funky water, window shopping and the same old street performers on Pearl St., some good restaurants, good schools, etc.) and not seeing that other communities also have plenty to offer. Sometimes it becomes apparent that people spend much of their time in "the bubble," seldom venturing to Denver, for example, or to Longmont. Someone even asked me how I liked living "next to the military base" in Fort Collins!?
Overall, aside from the "more-liberal-than-thou" crowd, I'm more likely to find Boulder kind of annoyingly suburban and lacking diversity, than snooty ... Then again, I interact with few Boulderites over 30, as most of my coworkers live in surrounding communities and my friends live elsewhere in the metro or in Fort Collins. Most of the people I talk to realize it is ridiculous to throw out words like "Longmont-tucky" because practically if you're middle class you'll be buying a house in one of the surrounding communities!
The snootiness seems to come out more in things like the paper or in political decisions (such as restricting housing, arresting the homeless, etc.) - very low tolerance for anything that offends the image of Boulder, and a reluctance to admit that the "liberal" policies you're pursuing are actually destructive of the environment, of social diversity, etc.
Last edited by docwatson; 01-13-2011 at 05:16 PM..
Is Boulder snooty? I think it's just acquired some of the characteristics of upper-middle-class suburban America - the feeling that I want to live only among people of my class & ilk in a place with well-controlled quality of life and nothing unpredictable.
Bingo...to the max. Doc, a wonderful job there of encapsulating and describing some of the affluent Boulder ethos.
Quote:
Originally Posted by docwatson
I'm sure you get this other places, although Boulder adds to it the "liberal" tint.
Yes, somewhat true, but for most Boulderites an identity as a "liberal" is just sort of a window dressing, a very convenient identity to assume to easily assimilate into Boulder society at large.
In fact the town contains plenty of uptight conservative types interested in all manner of repression and conformity.
Overall, wouldn't you agree that the people in Boulder just aren't that much different than the people in any other university town in the US? For example, San Fran or Berkeley, CA are in a totally different league than Boulder as far as "liberal" goes, aren't they?
I was considerng moving to Boulder at some point . . . this thread just dissuaded me from that. I cannot stand rich, snooty, hypocritical types. I'll stick with my small, down-to-earth Midwestern university town, thanks (despite the weather).
Kazoopilot, I certainly don't mean to dissuade anyone from coming here if that's your interest ... you know, snootiness can be found in any upper end suburb, in the northeast, in places (I am told) like Highlands Ranch ... in comparison to these places, Boulder makes some effort to be certain things (nice bike trails, some sense of "urbanism", some condos but with supply limitted so as to keep prices high, some "affordable housing"), there are plenty of friendly people, and sometimes here its as much provincialism (Boulder is the best and only progressive place around, so I moved here from _______!) than "snootiness". Many people come to Boulder county, live in Lafayette, Louisville, or Longmont (essentially the satelites of Boulder) and love it; or if they have the $$ live in Boulder. Boulder county is nicer than many places, and rent is cheaper than, say Boston or San Francisco!
But to me Boulder is certainly not an easygoing college town, lacks the 30-something demographic, nor does it have the diversity of thought and interest of a city, and thus I find it not to be for me. I think Coloradoans in generally also forget there is plenty of beauty in other places of the country - perhaps b/c we are used to living between the desert and the plains!
If you want a more "midwestern college town" experience with Colorado weather, I always recommend Fort Collins as a great place with great potential. Maybe not as sleepy as midwestern college towns, its spawned a lot of growth over the years, but the old parts of town retain a great quality of life.
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