Boulder, CO or Sacramento, CA

[mkregel]

Wifey, NateyNate and I are all thinking about moving (from San Ramon, CA) in the next year or so...(well NateyNate's just a baby, so he's thinking more about the gastronomic delights of enfamil...)

And the cities we're thinking of are:

1 - Boulder, CO
2 - Sacramento, CA
3 - SLC, UT

Any ideas? Caveats? Is Boulder that nice? Is living in Sac hell unless you go to Tahoe liberally?

[curlyred]

1. Housing in Boulder is pricey

Very pricey. Great place to live, but expensive.

[mkregel]

2. Can't be worse than the bay area

where we own a 2K sq ft home in San Ramon that set us back $620K

[Shrek]

3. Boulder is very progressive

And is close to some breathtaking scenery.

Winters can be a little nasty, though.

[ZenLefty]

5. And the home of Mork & Mindy is located there

Not many people know that.

[Shrek]

6. Don't kid yourself. EVERYONE knows that.

[ZenLefty]

4. Mountains or the Sea

That's the question.

Ski or Surf? Hike or Scuba? Chicken or Fish?

My vote is Boulder. We need more dem voters in this state!

[roughsatori]

7. I've been to Boulder for months at a time, a little too homogenized

for my tastes. However, it is a beautiful area and the people seemed very progressive. Hey, you can always go to poetry readings at Naropa Institute (Jack Kerouc School of Disembodied Poetics) if you move there. I really liked it very much. I like Taos NM very much too. There is a very good Buddhist center in Boulder also, as well as some great bookshops.

[curse10]

8. You'll have lots of other californians to meet in Boulder

that's all that lives there anymore.

[donotpassgo]

9. Dear loard, don't move to Sacramento...

unless you like excessive heats and the smell of cow shit.

[skyfox]

10. I have a better idea

Move to Groesbeck, Texas. A small town who loves the Groesbeck high school team, I hope they beat the pants off of the Mexia Panthers.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi skyfox!!

Welcome to DU!!

[cally]

11. I liked living in Sacramento

I lived in the downtown area and they have beautiful craftman houses. I would walk to the zoo and parks. It felt like a small town there because there were only a few restaurants and stores that my friends and I went to so I saw someone I knew most times I went out. The schools are iffy though. I moved before my daughter entered kindergarten but I know that many of my friends moved to Davis for the schools.

[BigBigBear]

12. Boulder is indeed

pricey. We used to blame the exiled Californians for driving up real estate prices. (Half-joking here.)

Great climate, close to a major city, mountains are your backyard, world class skiing, hiking, whitewater.

Politics are quite liberal, a little heavy on the hippy-dippy strain for my taste, but better than the alternative. But very expensive to live here. Hope you're either secure or planning to draw some big bucks. Outlying towns (Louisville, Longmont, Broomfield, etc) are all cheaper, and a few are quite newly built, so fairly nice.

If you don't drive a Subaru or an SUV, though, you'll stand out. Fair warning.

[KeepHopeAlive]

13. I lived in Boulder and areas of California

I'm a native Californian who lived in Boulder, CO, for four years. I moved back to CA last November.

Boulder is beautiful, and indeed progressive, but I couldn't get used to the winters and the altitude. Housing is very expensive. I really can't pinpoint the reason, but I just grew progressively more and more homesick for my native California.

We just bought a house on 4 acres in Paradise, California, which is near Chico--another liberal area--and not all that far from Sacramento. Housing is still affordable in this area, but climbing. People here blame Bay Area people (I was once one of them) who sell their homes and retire quite nicely here. As in Sacramento, summers are hot! I survived my first summer without air conditioning in my car so it's not really all that bad, although my husband has a differing opinion. Our view of the valley and beautiful sunsets makes it all worth it, and the ocean is a much shorter drive than it was from Colorado.