Twin Falls area (Boise, Pocatello, Idaho Falls: real estate, low crime, how much)

[NW Crow]

Like to learn more about certain areas to visit or possibly live. Twin Falls has some of my attention at this time. Learned about a few new things recently: the downtown commons, Saturday market, botanical gardens, planetarium, history & science museums, the theater, some of the nearby trails and rock climbing, Dierkes lake, the growing restaurant scene, etc.

Any locals with comments on recent development trends (beyond the big box stores and manufacturing plants)? Overall would you say Twin is getting "better", mainly just getting bigger or bigger & "worse"?

Favorite trails, camping areas, lakes mostly in the southeast direction (up to 2 hours away)?

Anybody in or have comments on Kimberley, Rock Creek, Oakley, Burley, Almo or Albion?

What do you consider interesting and little known or new about the area?

[ejisme]

Well, no one is jumping on this thread for you. We live in Mt Home, but go to Twin and the area a few times a year as a change from Boise. We also take our RV down to City of Rocks near Almo every couple years. Almo is a very interesting place to visit, and certainly worth a visit. Pretty isolated to live, but if that's what you want, then great.

Twin has grown a lot. The new hospital is very nice. Traffic is getting worse, and there isn't a whole lot they can do to make it better. They are just now talking about adding another bridge across the Snake River and the canyon to help distribute the traffic away from the main road, Blue Lakes Blvd. I'm sure that will be many years away from helping.

Surprisingly the mountains to the SE are not that crowded with people, RVs and ATVs. Maybe because Boise is too far away for an easy weekend getaway, and the tourists go north towards Hailey/Sun Valley or over the mountains to Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho boarder. Anyway, when we've been in those Mts we were surprised how few other people were around. They call these part of the Sawtooth Range, but it seems a bit of an island mountain range that should have it's own name, but who knows. The main Sawtoothes are to the North. The southern edge includes The City of Rocks, which are very cool and a nationally recognized rock climbing destination. It can be fun to watch the people freeclimbing the rock spires. We rockhound, and there are plenty of pretty rocks in the area. To the south of City of Rocks and Almo is vast desert for miles and miles into Nevada and Utah. Almo itself is just a few homes, gas station/post office/store in one building, a couple restaurants, a nice looking hotel, and a nice little developed hot spring pool business.

Hopefully someone else will come on and give you more and better info. I've driven through your other towns listed and maybe stopped at a business or two, but not really spent much time in any of them.

[dcisive]

I live 35 minutes West of there as I don't like cities. Twin Falls over the last 4 years has blossomed. Lot's more tract homes being built and many more stores and restaurants as well. Pretty much every big box store you can name is there. The hospital is pretty excellent. That's one reason I travel there periodically. The traffic there from 3-6pm can get real jammed up these days. They of course have the world famous Shoshone Falls and a drive west can get you to the Thousand Springs area, a very popular boatiing and fishing and hiking area. Kimberly is sprouting with new homes at this time. Rock Creek is a bit more limited in area but is real nice. Those are the primary areas I'm familiar with. plenty of RV and ATV options abound around there.

[NW Crow]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll keep poking around. I can find stuff but thought I'd ask once.

There is a pretty good short video on the South Hills here: https://visitsouthidaho.com/south-hi...e-enthusiasts/

I have been in that area directly below Twin Falls before but long ago and only a couple of days. Hopefully I'll get back out there sometime relatively soon. Been to City of Rocks several times and definitely want to return. Fall would be nice. Don't know exactly what you can easily get to in late spring or fall but the idea of having a more accessible option to the high country is appealing. Summer in real high country is not that long.

[pnwguy2]

Twin is an interesting place. Kind of a mix of tech, agriculture and services, not unlike other areas of similar size. It does serve as one of the primary south Idaho cities. I have found folks there friendly. The area leans Republican as opposed to Boise. Generally a nice area with a somewhat still rural feel.

[NW Crow]

If "Tech" companies took a bigger foothold, that would set off another level of growth. Will it happen in next 5 years, 10, 20 or not really? Handful of regional competitors and more elsewhere.

[pnwguy2]

One more thought…if you combined Boise with Idaho Falls you would get Twin Falls.

[NW Crow]

It is a crossroads. East-west, in state and for Boise and SLC. And North-South environmental zones.

Boise metro headed toward 1 million for sure. What shares will Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls get out of the next million for southern Idaho? 1/3rd, half collectively compared to Boise metro? Who gets more or less than they have to date? All headed towards 200-250k eventually? Will mostly be driven by employers, workers and real estate prices. States could consciously influence more than they usually do (or admit). Water, water development and water moves from agriculture will play a big role.

[dcisive]

Back in the latter 70's I moved to Salt Lake City. Back then it was actually a very manageable size city with very low crime, very clean, no gangs or issues. Most folks I knew never locked their doors or cars. That all began to change in the 80's when the gangs moved in and crime shot up like crazy. With the advent of the olympics, they went and vastly built out the I-15 corridor which made for horrific levels of traffic. In the 2000's with the housing boom it went crazy out of control. Traffic grew multitudes as did gang warfare, crime, taxes and the population which these days is pure out of control.

I for one hope and pray I won't be alive during a Twin Falls reaching anything near that level of mayhem. I live over half a hour west in a rural area and that's where I've retired, and hope things stay reasonably stable. Just in the 4 years I've been here I've watched the traffic more than double in Twin Falls. Between 3pm and 7pm it's now a zoo. Stores are way more crowded than they used to be. I don't know how much worse/more advanced I can expect it to get, but I'm sure it is headed in that direction. I sure hope above all that the immigrant influxes don't get way out of control in our area as well. Man, things are sure messed up. I'm not learning Spanish anytime soon.

[pnwguy2]

The truth is Twin Falls will have great growth in the next 20-30 years as larger cities reduce their populations. This is the future. Most will be able to work from home.



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