Anyone in Denver?
 

What's it like?

Great place. What would you like to know?

I'm in Denver and I love it. The weather is amazing, the scenery is beautiful and the people are friendly. If there's any specific information you want, let me know. :)

Well it's just popped up on my "Places to Move To" list.

1. Is it a place you can get around without a car?
2. Is housing reasonable?
3. What are some nice neighborhoods?

1. I don't think it would be easy to get around without a car. They're putting in a ton of light rail tracks but I think it's going to be several years before anything is finished -- right now there is a light rail, but it's very limited and I haven't found it useful at all. You can take the bus but I think it takes a long time to get anywhere that way.

2. Coming from Chicago, I think housing in Denver is incredibly reasonable. You can buy a house in the city for under $200,000 and rental prices are not bad at all -- we paid $850 a month for a cute little two bedroom in a hip neighborhood.

3. If you're not familiar with what neighborhoods are where, here is a good map of neighborhoods. In terms of what is a good neighborhood, it really depends on what you consider "good" -- some people really like Stapleton, for example, but it feels way too suburban to me. My favorite neighborhoods are Baker (beautiful, old Victorian houses and apartments, decent bars within walking distance), Five Points (diverse and cool), Capitol Hill (somewhat trendy with mostly larger, old apartment/condo buildings, lots of bars), Highlands/West Highlands (kind of hip but small, cute little shops and restaurants, compare to Bucktown in Chicago but less upscale), Wash Park (more established, upscale neighborhood with gorgeous large park where everyone goes jogging), LoDo (right by downtown, lots of lofts [expensive], restaurants and breweries), and Congress Park (pretty houses). Cherry Creek is where the upscale mall, shops and restaurants are and Country Club has huge, gorgeous houses (it reminds me of River Forest if you're at all familiar with Chicago). I haven't been here for very long so there are many neighborhoods I don't know anything about, but I know most of the central ones.

Let me know if you have any more questions. I love talking about Denver!

A very good summation! I agree. I do think that the main N/S light rail is within a year or so away.

The Santa Fe light rail makes it possible to live in some older neighborhoods (ie Littleton) and work downtown. Housing is probably a little less expensive down there.

If I were reasonably young and working downtown, though, I gotta admit that Capitol Hill or LoDo would be great places to live (I worked on Capitol Hill for 14 years at Channel 4). I wonder if the savings in not having a car might offset the additional housing expenses?

The great news is that many of the attractions that help make the city great are within walking distance of either. Those include all of the sports venues, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (six or seven theatres/concert halls in one location), the now expanding Art Museum -- along with tons of clubs and restaurants.

You've gotta at least have friends with a car, though, because otherwise how do you get to the mountains and Colorado's other natural wonders?

We moved here 23 years ago and seemed to stick. If I were to change jobs a final time, it would have to be somewhere possible to commute "home" to Denver on weekends. That nearly happened in NYC and Chicago over the past year. Two really great cities -- but Denver is definitely home.

Is 6 Flags downtown??

It sure is (although we who have lived here more than ten years still call it Elitch's which was its name before Six Flags bought it). Right next to The Pepsi Center where last night's NBA All Star Game was played. Just across I-25 from Mile High Stadium (I refuse to call it Invesco Field) and just Northwest of LoDo. They're building some new lofts and apartments up there, but I don't know how pricey they are. One of the GREAT bar/restaurants (not a club), called My Brother's Bar is in that neighborhood. There are several other good places close by as well.