Want to relocate to Colorado with young family from COLD Minnesota (Denver: sales, low crime)

[KJL]

Input needed on relocation...

My husband and I want to move our family to Colorado.
He is currently president of a construction company that does both residential and commercial work. He enjoys the commercial side of the business.
I am an Interior Designer currently working from our home.
Small children are 7 and 2 years old. A good school district is important.

We do not want to live in Denver area or any large communities like it, but want some input as to good communities around 50,000 or less.
Possibility of Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs???

ANY input is appreciated; I want to plan a "scouting" trip this summer to check out prospective places.

[jazzlover]

In today's environment, you would probably starve anyplace away from the Front Range cities in those career fields, and even the Front Range would be no picnic. I know people just like your husband in construction in Colorado--many with sterling reputations and decades of business operations here--who are struggling just to keep their doors open. Many have shrunk in gross income and employees by 75% or more. A lot of them are taking whatever work they can find out of state to try to stay afloat. The boom days are over.

[Josseppie]

If you were planning a trip, here are some cities you might want to visit.

Fort Collins, Greeley, Longmont, Pueblo, Canon City, Grand Junction and Durango.

Go visit them see what the city is like and get some ideas on if you think you can get a job there or not.

Good luck!

[ragerunner1]

You might want to check Castle Rock out. Its just south of the Denver metro but feels like its own place. Population is about 47,000. Good schools, incredible mountain views, great park system and very low crime. Yet, its close enough to Denver and Colorado Springs for employment opportunities. The town also issued around 250 residential building permits in 2009. Those kind of numbers for a town of its size is very good in today's economy.

[Josseppie]

Good idea plus there is Monument and its close to the Springs so many of the jobs could be in the Springs area while you live in the smaller town.

[wanneroo]

Living up in the mountains with the job of interior designer and construction manager, five years ago you would have been good. Now forget it.

I have a family member involved in RE development and construction and it is completely dead. He's out of work and so is just about everyone else involved in the business. RE agents aren't making sales and all the interior designers, architects, construction managers that worked for some of these different RE development companies are sitting on their butt right now, out of work and with nothing to do.

Also remember with Colorado mountain communities, it is very tight knit and who you know is more important than qualifications.

Good luck, but I would have a solid job in the bag before moving, no question. I would also have quite a bit of money in the bank as well.

[80skeys]

Grand Junction is a small desert town located on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains near the Utah border. It's very dry, brown, and isolated. The closest cities bigger than Junction are Denver (250 miles) and SLC (250 miles.)

Things that the town has going for it are:

• low crime, if there is any crime it's almost non-apparent
• peaceful area
• family oriented

Being a small town, there's practically nothing in the way of city life, or activities. It's also lacking in culture and variety. It's a homogenous town, being almost all white/caucasian. These thing may or may not appeal to you.

Summers are extremely hot. Winters are fairly cold, but usually it doesn't snow much. It's sunny almost every day of the year, there's very little precipitation here.

Driving to the mountains for hiking and other recreation will take you about an hour or two depending on where you wanna go. To the west of us is nothing but desert for several hundred miles.

If you like living in small towns and you like living in the desert, then you probably would enjoy Grand Junction. As for jobs and work, I think it's neither better nor worse than most other towns in the U.S. at this point in time.

[KJL]

Thank you all for your GREAT input and YES we will definitely have my husbands job secured before we even think of moving. I like the input about some of the smaller areas on the Front range, I will look into them. This is going to be the most exciting yet most stressful decision we've made in a very long time.
Our biggest thing we are going to have to adjust to is the fact we live on 20 acres right now with NO neighbors in view.

[Katarina Witt]

I have to say I agree with jazzlover (!), although joseppie and 80skeys had some good suggestions, too. I would eliminate the mtn towns out of hand.

The only stand-alone independent city of the ones suggested that is <50 K people is Grand Junction, and it's close.

When you visit, you will find that the Front Range of CO is different than MN in that there aren't a lot of smaller, independent cities. Ft. Collins becomes Loveland, becomes Longmont, becomes the northern suburbs of Denver, becomes Denver, becomes the southern suburbs (including Castle Rock) w/o much open land in between. Then you have a little gap until Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

[KJL]

Ok...Now that I am looking at the eastern part of the state...Castle Rock is appealing to me.
Any input?
Seems like a nice place to raise the family and it's close to Denver and it doesn't look too crowded.