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Old 01-23-2009, 10:58 AM
 
5 posts, read 14,581 times
Reputation: 10

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What places from this list would be safe, clean, kids friendly, good schools, metro area, close to shopping, parks and not too pricey.
Please help, we are trying hard to choose the place :-)
Thank you so much!

Arvada
Athmar Park and Westwood
Auraria
Aurora
Aurora Fitzsimons
Baker
Barnum
Bear Valley
Belmar
Berkeley
Bonnie Brae
Boulder
Brighton
Broomfield
Capitol Hill
Castle Rock
Centennial
Chaffee Park
Cheesman Park
Cherry Creek
City Park
Cole and Whittier
Commerce City
Congress Park
Denver Tech Center
Englewood
Federal Heights
Five Points
Fort Logan and Sheridan
Glendale
Globeville
Golden
Golden Triangle
Green Valley Ranch
Greenwood Village
Hale
Hampden Heights and Southmoor
Harvey Park
Henderson
Highlands and Jefferson Park
Highlands Ranch
Hilltop
Lafayette
Lakewood
Littleton
LoDo
Lone Tree
Longmont
Louisville
Lowry
Marston
Montbello
Montclair
Morrison
Northeast Park Hill
Northglenn
Park Hill
Parker
Regis
Ruby Hill
Sloan Lake and Edgewater
South Platte
Stapleton
Sunnyside
Superior
Thornton
University Hills
University Park
Uptown
Washington and Virginia Vale
Washington Park and Platt Park
Westminster
Wheat Ridge
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Old 01-23-2009, 11:27 AM
 
1,176 posts, read 4,469,517 times
Reputation: 470
There is this link at the top of the page called search.
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Old 01-23-2009, 11:30 AM
 
Location: RSM
5,113 posts, read 19,702,354 times
Reputation: 1927
and it really depends on what "close to parks/shopping" means. some communities are built around them, some communities you have to drive to one or both. a 5 min drive is close to some but too far for others
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Old 01-23-2009, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Denver
2,969 posts, read 6,923,789 times
Reputation: 4866
Berkeley and Harvey Park, if you want to be in Denver
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Old 01-23-2009, 11:42 AM
 
Location: Irvine, CA / Golden, CO
59 posts, read 190,916 times
Reputation: 46
This list is meaningless. Do some research on your own, make some decisions on your own and ask some specific questions about your choices. Use the search feature (it works quite well) to see what others have said in the past.

Posting every city in/near Denver and asking the forum to make a decision for you where you should live is not “trying hard” to find a city to live in, it is just lazy and ultimately a waste of everyone’s time.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mom-to-be View Post
What places from this list would be safe, clean, kids friendly, good schools, metro area, close to shopping, parks and not too pricey.
Please help, we are trying hard to choose the place :-)
Thank you so much!

Arvada
Athmar Park and Westwood
Auraria
Aurora
Aurora Fitzsimons
Baker
Barnum
Bear Valley
Belmar
Berkeley
Bonnie Brae
Boulder
Brighton
Broomfield
Capitol Hill
Castle Rock
Centennial
Chaffee Park
Cheesman Park
Cherry Creek
City Park
Cole and Whittier
Commerce City
Congress Park
Denver Tech Center
Englewood
Federal Heights
Five Points
Fort Logan and Sheridan
Glendale
Globeville
Golden
Golden Triangle
Green Valley Ranch
Greenwood Village
Hale
Hampden Heights and Southmoor
Harvey Park
Henderson
Highlands and Jefferson Park
Highlands Ranch
Hilltop
Lafayette
Lakewood
Littleton
LoDo
Lone Tree
Longmont
Louisville
Lowry
Marston
Montbello
Montclair
Morrison
Northeast Park Hill
Northglenn
Park Hill
Parker
Regis
Ruby Hill
Sloan Lake and Edgewater
South Platte
Stapleton
Sunnyside
Superior
Thornton
University Hills
University Park
Uptown
Washington and Virginia Vale
Washington Park and Platt Park
Westminster
Wheat Ridge
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Old 01-23-2009, 01:02 PM
 
152 posts, read 616,592 times
Reputation: 61
you really need to narrow it down... a LOT! For instance, when you say metro area, does being closer to the city center even matter to you, or are you fine with some place like Parker? Does affordable mean $200k, $400k or $600k? Do you like the charm of older neighborhoods or do you want the modern amenities of a new house? You've got to give us SOMETHING other than a list of every possible city. We all know what cities are in the denver area.
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Old 01-23-2009, 05:31 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,300,450 times
Reputation: 35920
Where would the primary wage earner be working? If it's DTC, the northern 'burbs are out. If it's Boulder, nix the southern area. Fed Center? Look west. DIA/Aurora? Look east. You really need to be more specific about what you want. There are few "bad" school districts in the metro area, and almost everywhere is near shopping and parks.
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Old 01-24-2009, 09:00 AM
 
Location: Aurora, Colorado
2,212 posts, read 5,139,175 times
Reputation: 2371
As a mom myself, I spent hours on this site reading nearly every post until I decided to prioritize. When looking for a place to live and basically starting from scratch (like we did), you have to decide which is more important. You are not going to find a place that will meet every single one of your needs, so you have to decide if it's more important to be in a good school district, live in a big house that doesn't cost much, or be down the street from work.

For my family, schools were a priority, followed by a 30-minute or less commute to work, with the price of a home as the last priority (as you can find a smaller house if necessary).

The best school districts in Denver are Cherry Creek School District and Douglas County School District. Cherry Creek and Douglas County had a recent bond election for the schools and it passed in Cherry Creek and failed in Douglas County. Both bonds were going to be used for numerous things, but mostly to build new schools. Douglas County is currently having meetings trying to figure out how to accomodate all of the kids living in the district without any money for new schools, so in my opinion, Cherry Creek School District residents have their priorities straight and have put the schools in their district in their rightful place. My daughter is currently in elementary school in Cherry Creek SD and I am amazed that she has the opportunity to be in marching band (in elementary school!), go to art class (which in many schools has been cut), computer lab, gym, participate in ski school, after school science, multi-cultural, and foreign language clubs.

Go to greatschools.net and do some research. Take it with a grain of salt as some schools that rate as a 7 or 8 will be just as good as a school rated 10. I wouldn't look at anything less than a 7. Since there are tons of elementary schools, narrow your search down to a high school in the area. Take a look at what the graduation rate is. Take a look at their test scores, including SAT and ACT. Take a look at the crime rate and absence rates (you can find both on the spreadsheets for every school on the district website). Once you find a high school that you would like your kids to go to, you can see which junior high schools and elementary schools feed into that school and then you can pinpoint where you want to be. Cherry Creek SD encompasses a wide area so you will likely be able to find a great place to live.

To give you an idea, we are in the Cherry Creek SD, in an unicorporated part of Aurora. We are on the border between SE Aurora and Centennial. Our zip code is 80015 but closer to 80016. We live near the Southlands Mall (less than 2 miles), and about 15 minutes from Park Meadows Mall. Most of our neighbors either work at the Tech Center, Centennial Airport, Denver Int'l Airport, or Buckley Air Force Base. The homes in our area range in price but we found our 2,000 sq ft, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, walk-out unfinished basement, backing to open space, easy walk to elementary, junior and high school house and bought it for $265,000. There have been two homes for sale on our street that have been sold since we moved in (July). There is a market for homes here because it's in a safe area, convenient, and in a good school district. It's not a place to buy an investment property, but if you're looking for a good place to raise kids where nearly every block has a group of kids playing basketball or football or riding their bikes, this is the place. Our subdivision is called Saddle Rock Ridge. If you've got more money, you can look in Centennial (there are amazing homes there) or Saddle Rock (near our area, but more upscale).
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Old 01-24-2009, 09:36 AM
 
Location: here
24,873 posts, read 36,055,404 times
Reputation: 32726
As already said, you really need to narrow it down. Where is work? That's a good place to start. Personally, I like to live close to work because I think time spent commuting is wasted. My husband found a job first, and that narrowed it down to the southern burbs, and we went from there.
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Old 01-24-2009, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,300,450 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by the3Ds View Post
The best school districts in Denver are Cherry Creek School District and Douglas County School District.
There are many people, including me, who would disagree with that. In addition, there are bad schools in "good" districts, bad teachers in "good" schools, etc. What's best for one kid isn't always best for another. And so on. Housing in CCSD is on the expensive side. Douglas CO. is very suburban, fine if you like that. As you said yourself, a school rated 7 or 8 can be as good as one rated 10. And none of these ratings will guarantee that your child will do well there.
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