America's Best Places to Live 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008provided by
No. 2: Fort Collins, Colo.
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Courtesy: City of Fort Collins |
Population: 129,500
Miles from Denver: 59
Hiking and biking trails: 25 miles
Average July temperature:
69°F
Pros: Environmentally minded, lots of high-tech jobs, outdoor paradise
Con: More than an hour from a major city
One of the first things you notice about this Rocky Mountain city is that practically every new road has a bike lane. Even the wheelless can get in on the action now that Fort Collins (which ranked No. 1 on our list in 2006) has a bike library in the middle of its historic downtown: Residents and visitors can check out a bicycle for up to seven days, free. “I’m generally out on my bike two to three times a week,” says Greg Churchman, 46, who owns a human-resources consulting firm. He and his wife Beth, 50, a probation officer, sometimes ride to nearby Horsetooth Reservoir with their sons James, 16, and Lucas, 14. “The park and trails system in this town are incredible,” says Beth.
Even if you’re not the outdoorsy type, Fort Collins has a ton to recommend it. Old Town, the city’s historic district, contains four microbreweries and more than two dozen restaurants, most of them with alfresco seating. A healthy concentration of bioscience and tech companies, including Agilent Technologies, Hewlett-Packard and Kodak, keeps employment opportunities high. Colorado State University occupies a scenic spot in the middle of town, providing a college-town feel and youthful energy. And the city is on the forefront of environmental planning; it just received a grant from the Department of Energy to start a solar-energy project downtown. As for health care, the award-winning Poudre Valley Health System will soon be home to a brand-new cancer center.
While the excellent schools have been overcrowded in recent years, officials have taken steps to correct the problem by moving some grades to different buildings. “I moved here for the quality of the schools and basically the quality of life,” says Tracy Riley, 39, a marketing communications specialist who arrived last year from Windsor, Calif. “Fort Collins has everything.”