Boise, the good the bad.
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12/14/2014
My wife, two kids (school age) and I have lived in Boise for about 11 years. My wife and I are very highly educated professional people. The people in Boise are generally very nice, some of nicest people I’ve known overall and I’ve lived all over the country. The parks are fantastic and the greenbelt along the river are outstanding, best in the country. A very fit town, lots of tri-athletes. The mountain biking is second to none and the road bike riding is huge here. The outdoors is very accessible, close by and lots of camping and fishing nearby. Housing is very affordable (for a reason). Now for the bad parts.
Wages in Idaho are very near the bottom, almost legendarily bad, more people on minimum wage than almost anywhere in the country. The wages for teachers are, I believe, THE lowest in the country. The state doesn’t give a damn about education and the legislature is constantly looking for ways to cut money for education. They seem to have almost a vendetta against teachers and public spending on education. At a higher level, the state university, Boise State, honestly is little more than a huge community college, not known for much. Sorry, it’s the truth.
The air quality is very bad both summer and winter. People are not exaggerating! It can be horrible. I’ve seen it where you can’t see a half mile down the road. Boise is in a valley and the smoke from summer fires, often from as far away as out of state, fill the bowl. Winters have a horrible inversion that traps pollution in a mix of toxic fog. Only place I’ve seen worse is extreme east Los Angeles around Redlands. When my children were very small we had to take them multiple times to the emergency room for breathing treatments. I remember because each trip cost me $500. I also remember multiple times I had to cancel a summer bike ride because my lungs and eyes burned so much.
The economy is based on very low wage retail and if you move here because of the inexpensive housing, beware, that this is because almost any job will have depressed wages from the national average. Boise never really recovered from the Great Recession. Don’t let the low unemployment rate lull you to sleep. Walmart and healthcare are the leading employers in the state. Many of the high tech jobs of the 1990’s have left. I have lost friends who were highly education professionals who moved away due to lack of jobs or pathetically low wages.
Lastly, the winter gloom. Boise is not at all sunny in the winter. It’s not like Colorado. Many people have a very hard time with seasonal depression here. By practical measures, Boise is not any colder than Denver but the winter gloom can be overwhelming. It really bothers many people especially people who grew up in sunny places.
Boise | Eagle, ID