Where to Live in West Denver? (Colorado Springs, Lakewood: transplants, schools, college)

[Airic]

First of all, it's great to see so many people from all over the country heading out to Denver. Really makes Denver seem like a great place to live, with so many new transplants.

Someday soon I'd like to leave Michigan and head out west to the Denver area. The most important thing I'd like to have are the views of the mountains, so I would assume that I'd have to live on the west side. I won't be having any kids, so schools are of no concern to me. I'd just like a "safe" area, that's not too unbelievably expensive, yet near all the action. I've heard that Boulder would have all this, but I've lived in Ann Arbor and am not crazy about college towns.

Golden kinda looks appealing, or is it kinda too far away from everything? Also Colorado Springs, looks like it's right near the mountains? How is that area?

Any input would be helpful, so that I can start looking into certain areas. Thanks!

[2bindenver]

You are right, CS is closer the the mountains, than Denver - so the view you want depends on what type of view. Do you want a to see a foothill or two, a peek of a peak or as much of the front range as you can get?

Golden is very appealing. As a matter of fact the whole area is appealing to someone and for different reasons. Besides the view and the "no party zone", what is important to you?




This is the print that sits above my desk.

[tfox]

Hi Airic,

Sounds like you're looking all over the map.

This is the Denver forum -- there's also a Colorado Springs forum too. In that forum, "Mike from Back East" has some great older posts, particularly, "Why choose Colorado Springs." Colorado Springs does have great views of Pike's peak virtually anywhere in the city -- I would say overall that Colorado Springs has the Denver area bested in the mountain views department, though Denver has some draws over the Springs in other ways.

You mentioned that you like views -- well, there are different kinds of views. For example, Boulder has great views of the Flatirons rock formations in the foothills, but to actually see the peaks you have to back out to then nearby city of Longmont to the east. The Denver area is actually like a bowl, so to really see the high peaks you often have to back up a bit to the east side of Denver to see the views -- for example, one of the best views in the city is from the City Park near the science museum. Once you're in the foothills, for example, in Golden or Morrisson, you're going to have great up-close views of nearby hills but the peaks will be obscured. Unfotunately, Denver's downtown area doesn't really have much of a mountain view since it's at the bottom of the bowl. On the other hand, even a lot of the southeastern suburbs, though far from the mountains, do have great views of the peaks due to their higher elevation than the city.

Since you mentioned Golden, I would say its draws are that it's in the foothills, it is right on the way to the moutains and skiing on I-70, it is very walkable, it actually has some housing with character, it has a kayak park, it has a small engineering college (the Colorado School of Mines) there with some cultural activites, (but the "Mines" engineering students are not really the party types that you'd find up in Boulder). It's also not a bad commute to Downtown or Central Denver (maybe 30 minutes in rush hour), though a very long commute to the the tech center corridors in the southeast metro. However, It is going to command a price premium over nearby Lakewood or Arvada for all the above reasons.