Looking for family friendly liberal(ish) town with character (Denver: fit in, transplants)

[dude_reino]

Originally Posted by smdensbcs

I'll take a wild guess here and say its for the same reasons affluent "conservatives" want to live in fancy mountain towns where they are isolated from firsthand experience of what their policies have done to communities. Or perhaps you are aware of lots of affluent right wingers who live in poor neighborhoods and are deeply concerned about the well-being of poor, under-educated folks? If such a creature ever existed (doubtful), they certainly don't exist anymore. Not in this world. Not that I've ever met or even heard of.

The difference being that affluent conservatives don't pretend to care about the social plight of the poor and undeveloped communities. Meanwhile, affluent liberals sit around their dinner tables in their ivory towers, smelling their own farts and patting themselves on the back while saying "We're so awesome for giving handouts and entitlements to the poor."

Meanwhile, regular working class people like myself live in these communities and can't help but get angry at these liberal policies when I see dozens of people using food stamps to buy booze at 10:00 on a weekday and then leave their empty bottles on my front lawn.

[bongo]

Of the towns in which I've lived in Colorado the one's that come to mind with most of your criteria are Durango, Manitou, Steamboat & Ft. Collins. I can't address the price per square footage for real estate, though.

[CosmicWizard]

dude-reino wrote: Meanwhile, affluent liberals sit around their dinner tables in their ivory towers, smelling their own farts....

And the non liberals simply fart on everybody else?

[davebarnes]

Originally Posted by dude_reino

I see dozens of people using food stamps to buy booze

Even these people don't claim you can buy booze with a SNAP EBT card.
TheDC Investigation: What I was able to buy with my food stamps | The Daily Caller
"What can you buy with food stamps? Pretty much anything sold in a grocERy store, other than tobacco, booze and hot food."

On the other hand, it appears that with some work, you can.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/...d-food-stamps/

[Lalaena G.-F.]

Erie sounds like it might have everything you want. Great town that's expanding.

[ZorbaTheGeek]

Carbondale is a small town outside of Aspen, with good schools, liberal, eco-oriented. Beautiful scenery, river running through town, hot springs outside of town. Depends on if you want a small town or if you want to be closer to a city.

[blackf150]

That why I love Colorado - pretty mixed of liberals and conservatives.

Colorado is one of state that I'm consider to relocate in few years, depending on my completion of bachelor degree at university. I have consider California as well.

I absolutely LOVE mountainous region.

[blackf150]

Originally Posted by dude_reino

The difference being that affluent conservatives don't pretend to care about the social plight of the poor and undeveloped communities. Meanwhile, affluent liberals sit around their dinner tables in their ivory towers, smelling their own farts and patting themselves on the back while saying "We're so awesome for giving handouts and entitlements to the poor."

Meanwhile, regular working class people like myself live in these communities and can't help but get angry at these liberal policies when I see dozens of people using food stamps to buy booze at 10:00 on a weekday and then leave their empty bottles on my front lawn.

Well, you have opportunity to relocate to conservative state, Wyoming or Utah, so if it is not option, you have to deal with political system that you disagree. I have deal with conservative government in my state and it doesn't affect my life because I'm not worried about political at all time.

You cannot change anyone, who disagree with you - based on my experience with political debate in numerous forums, however you are free to criticize whatever you want but others are free to backfire at you - I can't help those situation.

I'm fairly liberal and independent voter - pro-LGBT rights, pro-gun rights.

[oldtrader]

We're a liberal leaning family looking to escape the hectic lifestyle of the DC area and lower our cost of living at the same time.

What DC and North East Call Liberal, you will not really find in Colorado, as Liberal in Colorado, would be considered more just North of Conservative back there.

We love the outdoors and want to be surrounded by nature. Good restaurants, coffee houses, music venues are also important.

Again if you want to be in areas surrounded by nature, the other parts of your list will not really apply. You will have to drive an hour or more to have those other amenities from where you live surrounded by nature. Problem, in the mountain areas where you have lots of nature, and some of the other amenities you are going to find the property priced out of your price range as those are going to be in the metro area except in the exclusive high priced parts of the state.

[1cindym]

All, I have been away from City-Data for a while (really, user-error prevented me from seeing people actually responded to my question! Doh!) I LOVE the responses from everyone. Thank you!

We have so far singled-out Fort Collins and are actively looking for a home. We think Evergreen might be a little out of our price range and Conifer seems a little small and spread out -- possibly making it tougher for our 12 yr old son to make friends. My husband just returned from a trip to Fort Collins (got caught in all that snow!) and loved the area. He found people to be very friendly, the town to be well planned, clean and with family-friendly neighborhoods. He loves the close proximity and accessibility to all the trails and reservoirs. Around here, to go for a significant hike you have to sit in traffic for 30 minutes to an hour or more!

Our challenge now is that there doesn't seem to be much housing inventory in Fort Collins right now. I've heard from some (people around DC mostly, so I'm not sure it's relevant to CO) that you have to be on the ground to get the intel on "pre-market" homes in a tough market, otherwise, contracts are written before a home even gets listed on MLS. Does this seem accurate to anyone? We have a Realtor who seems to be sharp...though she's VERY busy, which has me worried she won't have enough time for us. Even just scheduling a few hours w/ her to look at listings took some juggling of our schedule. We're looking for a 4+ (pref 5) bedroom home with at least 3,500 sq feet and about .25 acres or more (we've lowered our land expectations quite a bit!), in a good school district, for $425K - $500K (tops), so maybe we're just too low for what we want.

After reading SMDENSBCS' post, I've started checking out Colorado Springs, west of 25, as well. It certainly looks beautiful from here and the prices look great -- it seems we'd be able to get what we're looking for based on the realty sites. But I'll have to go see it for myself (I'm planning a trip out very soon -- my husband and I are tag teaming our trips!).

To answer some questions regarding "why Colorado?", we like the climate, the mountains, the outdoor living, the good schools and we know quite a few friends who are either from Colorado and have returned or have relocated and have never looked back. I am definitely going to miss the lush greenery of the east coast and I'm a little nervous about how I'll deal with all that brown countryside east of the range! But like most things, I figure I'll adjust and start to appreciate the unique qualities of a semi-arid climate. We did look into both Portlands (Maine was a possibility for a while there) but Oregon is just too rainy for us and we would miss snow. Plus, I think Portland might be too far on the left end of the spectrum. My friends that live there say the show "Portlandia" is not just spoof! We've searched ALL over the country and Colorado is a standout in almost every category. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have concerns about fires and water shortages (coming from the east where we don't even think about those things). But I suppose there are concerns no matter where you go. We will adjust, conserve and plan the best we can.

Politically speaking, neither of us are terribly political, actually. While we're both liberal leaning, we have MANY conservative friends and we agree to disagree on certain matters. But I feel very strongly about equal rights for the LGBT community and keeping the gov's hands off my body. I don't want to be in an area where our son regularly hears hateful slurs about the LGBT community (or about anyone, frankly). I've stumbled upon hateful prejudice in some other very conservative areas before and I want to avoid stumbling into that kind of neighborhood. In the same way, I don't want to be somewhere our son will be made to feel odd b/c we don't belong to a church (I'm not linking that statement to politics...it's an aside).

I really appreciate everyone's feedback and if anyone has ideas of how to get a jump on homes in Fort Collins before they get snatched up, or info on living in Colorado Springs, I'm all ears!

Thanks again, all!!