OT: A few questions for Denver Area Residents

Quick thoughts.

This is a great region, all around.  Definitely growing.  Lots of job opportunities, especially for engineering.  There are several enginnering/aerospace hotbeads in the region, from Fort Collins in the north to Colorado Springs in the south.  I'd check out the Broomfield/Interlocken/Lousiville/Lafayette/Superior corridor.  Real estate in this area is still reasonable, and the schools are excellent (if you're thinking about settling down).  This area also has the benefit of being 20-25 minutes from both Dever and Boulder.  The south and west are older and more establised neighborhoods, thus, much higher real estate and rental prices.  Downtown is great if you're young and single, but be prepared to pay high rent.

Real estate is on fire throughout the state.  If you're going to buy, assume you will be paying above list price for anything remotely decent and well-located.

The other posters pretty much summed up skiing.  Do not plan on easy weekend trips.  Pure misery.  Not even worth it anymore, imho.  Get a job that gives you flexible hours and ski during the week.  

Skiing as a local is much different than skiing as tourist.  It's personal preference, but I do everything possible to avoid the Vail Resort mountains.  The prices are a joke, the lift lines are a mob scene, and when you live here, you don't like being surrounded by tourists.  To each their own, though.  If you're moving here for just skiing, which doesn't seem like the case based on your post, I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.  Skiing/Riding is a bonus to an otherwise amazing region. 

Good luck.

But I will mention that I have been driving to the mountains most weekends for day trips to the slopes.  I go to keystone, and it takes about 1.5 hrs.  As mentioned above, most people get up very early to go to the slopes, whereas I tend to leave closer to 10am, so that could be the reason for my good luck.

I would highly recommend moving here due to the weather and job opportunities. 

I noticed that an above poster referred to the area as being highly diverse, and I strongly disagree with that assessment.  I'm not sure if that affects your decision, but Denver itself seems to be whiter and yuppier than most big cities. 

Another poster said "Another negative, I have found it difficult to connect with people out here" and I think that description is spot on.  If you go downtown on the weekends, you are likely to experience unsafe levels of douchiness.  The locals are great, but Denver is better than 70% transplants, so i feel confident blaming them. 

Also, outside of RedRocks, Denver pulls some phenomenal musical acts year round.  westword.com is a good resource for browsing events and getting an idea of what the city has to offer.

300 days of sunshine is the sort of thing you never knew you always wanted.  The only drawback is it will be impossible to move back to Michigan later.  Also the lack of humidity. You get spoiled very quickly.  You can't imagine how much you'll hate visiting Michigan any time other than the fall for Michigan games.

The traffic is worse than Ann Arbor but actually pretty good nationally (based on my experience, at least).  I've spent significant time in the last 10 years in Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Houston, and Cali bay area; and Denver traffic is infinitely better than any of them.  Tons of people in Denver complain bitterly about the traffic.  I laugh at them.

This is a decent size city, so it will feel different than A2.  Greater metro Denver is around 3M people.

Pro sports scene is excellent.  College sports scene is fairly anemic (with a few small exceptions like DU Hockey).

Little things are awesome.  Snow in Denver seldom lasts more than 2 or 3 days.  We might get a foot of snow but it's friggin' GONE almost overnight.  It never gets dirty.  You get pretty snow without ugly snow.

Lived in Michigan the first 26 years of my life.  Loved it there.  Planned to stay there.  Now I'll never go back.

Quick hits from someone who just moved to Denver 6 months ago (my trajectory was Ann Arbor -> Atlanta -> Denver). This is mostly cold water since everyone loves Denver so damn much. I actually do too, but you won't have trouble finding positive information on Denver so:

• Crazy seller's market in many areas right now. We pay 2k for a 1200 sqft nice apartment on the edge of a desirable area. We're looking for a house, and houses go above asking within a day or two of the first showings.
• There are some cool neighborhoods (downtown, Wash Park, Platt Park are my favorites so far, surely there are more). There is also appaling suburban sprawl in every direction if that's your bag.
• Others have mentioned the DTC - I work there. The train is great if you leave nearish and your office is nearish. Otherwise it's 30+ minutes for 10-12 miles for me (straight down 70 from south of down town). The area around the DTC is sprawl.
• It's dry as fuck here. It's practically a desert. Bring your humidifiers. Other than that, the weather is great. Majority sunny and warm but with a little weather for variety (I didn't like California's numbingly constant weather).
• The airport is far away, 40+ minute drive from downtown area. They're building a train from downtown - ETA 2016. 
• Flights are often delayed due to changing weather, and there is often turbulence on the way in/out. Some heavy travel since moving here actually got me over my fear of turbulence real quick.
• It can feel like you're living in an REI catalog.

Skiing!

• You can drive to skiing... don't misconstrue that as living in a ski town.
• The other commenters are right: leaving early means on the road before 6 am - traffic will already be heavy but moving. PJ's comment about leaving at 7 doesn't match my experience at all - the roads have been slammed well before then. I'm also leaving from the downtown area (Wash Park).
• It'll take 2 hours. That's 4 hours in the car for there and back... if you can stay the night and ski twice in a row to cut off a few trips, do it.

Weekend skiing is very feasible, Thousands and thousands of people do it. It's so feasible, eastbound I-70 from the tunnel to Morrison is the second or third largest city in Colorado on Sunday afternoons. I-70 can be a nightmare. CDOT has been trying to figure out what to do about it for as long as I've been here -- 20 years -- but it just keeps getting worse. I'll go Willow Pass/Cameron Pass/Rabbit Ears Pass to avoid it.

I drove through Golden twice today (to and from fishing on the South Platte, beautiful day on the river), no frat house smell. I lived just east of there, in Wheat Ridge, for a time. If you didn't know the Coors brewery was a brewery, you'd think it was an auto factory. Golden's a nice little place, but it's getting stomped fast.

Ball Aerospace, among others, has a strong and growing presence in the north Denver area, Westminster/Broomfield, as well as things going on around Boulder, given CU/LASP and etc.

The vacancy rate in Boulder County is approx 0%. Since the flood, we've rented a place and bought a place; it's a crazy market here right now. Bring cash.

I was recently staffed in Denver for a few months.  I strongly disliked it.  So, let me provide a dissenting perspective, from someone who's spent most of their life on the East Coast.

(1) It's small and provincial.  If you like real culture and art, like you can find in the old cities in the upper midwest or East Coast, you're going to feel like you got sent to the moon. Crappy art, crappy "high" music, crappy theater.  There's some sweet pop music but, you know, that gets old real fast once you're in your late 20s.

(2) There's not a lot of real money in Denver - even compared to a Detroit or a Philadelphia, let alone a New York or Chicago.  There's very little poverty, but very little serious money, too. That ties into (1) above;  there are a ton of 20 and 30 somethings earning 50 grand a year and going to brewpubs, but not a lot of settled folks making 200k and eating good food and going out to high-end culture.  If you're in a Chicago or Boston etc., you can get the best of both worlds; a going-out culture when you're a single dude in your 20s and then a place to grow with once you have a wife, some more disposible income, etc.  I'm in my early 30s now and I can't imagine having to live in Denver, but it would've seemed AWESOME at 25.

(3) The [bleeping] traffic going out to the mountains, man.  Even the beach traffic on the East Coast on summer weekends isn't that bad.   Ironically, the commuting traffic is very light compared to East Coast cities.  But I-70 crushes your soul.

(4) The housing stock sucks unless you like cheaply built condos downtown or cheaply built sprawlly crap anywhere else.  Nothing like the older houses you can get in any Eastern or Midwestern city that were built when people still gave a shit.  I can't imagine sinking money into real estate that's a depreciating asset as soon as the bubble pops.

(5)  It's painfully homogenous.  White, yuppie, young.  Not that there's anything wrong with that (it describes me), but I like diversity in interests, ages, backgrounds among the people I live with.  Denver is like one of those quasi segregated suburbs that insulates you from anyone who might make you feel uncomfortable, but rendered in the form of an entire city.

(6) To be fair, the weather is amazing.