WANTED:town/city with excellant hospitals/schools (Denver, Fort Collins: transplants, houses)

[luvnature]

Aloha! My family, (three kiddos + hubby & me) are considering relocating to Colorado in search of better schools & health care. The area where we live in Hawaii has terrible public schools.We have one child in a great private school but will not be able to afford to put all of the kids there. Also the hospital here, although good, lacks a cath lab & hubby has a stent that will likely need replacing in a few years. We are looking at the general Ft. Collins area. Loveland seems to have more 1 story houses (which I need due to bad knees). But I can't seem to find many posts here that indicate what Loveland is really like. Our price range is on the low side as we need to lower our monthly outgo - $250K to 350K. Jobs are not a concern but do want to be in an area that is not economically depressed. So - suggestions for other areas to check out? Thoughts on Loveland vs Ft. Collins? Co Sprgs is not an option - too right-wing for us, and we tend to lean towards the yoga/meditation version of spirituality which I think would not go over well in CoSps. Any Hawaii transplants out there??
Thanks for any repies!

[Mike from back east]

Boulder is the best fit for you, but is double your price range. There are places near Boulder....Louisville, Superior that should fit your price range and provide very acceptable schools and medical care. Use the search tool with keyword Louisville or Superior or Boulder and you'll find a ton of info already here. You can do compound searches, like: Superior +schools and it will find all the stuff with BOTH words in the body. Use the + sign as I've shown. Lots of data already here....

One-story ranch-style homes are very popular here, you should have no trouble finding that in most towns/areas.

s/Mike

[BenWolfe]

I would look into Highlands Ranch or Littleton. It is not nearly as far to the Right or Left as CO Springs or Boulder, but socially you should do fine. Douglas County Schools are excellent and I can say from personal experience that Sky Ridge is an excellent hospital. You can find a very nice house in these areas for under $350k.

[tfox]

I see that no one has yet addressed your question about Loveland vs. Fort Collins.

Both Loveland and (south) Fort Collins feel much the same and are pretty well interconnected at this point. Loveland's a lot quieter and the demographic is mostly families and retirees -- not much happening there for the younger crowd, who all flock to Fort Collins instead. There's nothing resembling the campus scene or the downtown Fort Collins ("Old Town") scene in Loveland.

Loveland has grown a lot since I was in Fort Collins. It's kind of grown from a small town to more of a bedroom community. Back then it was very sleepy and well known for being a retirement destination. No one then would have dreamed in a million years of commuting to Denver or Boulder from Loveland back then. That's certainly changed today -- though I can't understand why anyone would put themselves through a commute like that. Not many people commute from Fort Collins, though -- that appears to be too far for just about anyone.