insiders know ...

[october 2024 roommates]

SO, roomiematch.com's Denver roommate rundown:

Denver or "Menver" or "The Mile-High City" is HIGH.

Living here is an officially high to very high altitude experience. But this hunky beefcake of a metro is also sky high on its love affair with beer and outdoor sports.

Denver is more manly than most US metros. Literally, in that there's 102 single men for every 100 single women, leading to the nickname "Menver." Denver's proud of its cowboy and miner past, and its present is pretty high on manliness as well.

Avalanche! Barbarians! Broncos! Mammoth! Nuggets! Pioneers! Rapids! Raptors and . . . Rockies!

Is that an early warning system announcing an invading horde precipitating an environmental disaster via a calamity of their masculinity? No! Those are the names of the most popular local sports teams!

Denverites love a ruggedly adventurous life outdoors. They also love sports, especially outdoor sports.

So how much do they love their local outdoor sports teams with ruggedly adventurous names? SO MUCH.

Hopefully you and your roommates will like at least a team or two too, because sports aren't easy to avoid in Denver. They are ruggedly year-round.

And how about some buff beers with those high scores? The Denver metro produces more beer by volume than any other US city. This is notable for beer loving roommates in two ways: From award-winning artisanal micro to extreme macro, it's all right here at its very fresh best.

It's also being served at high elevation, which can exacerbate some possibly dangerous effects, especially for roommates moving from lower.

Meanwhile, high elevation plus winter outdoor sports plus beer have lead to UV overexposure via subsequent failures for many to keep up with their sunblock/hats/longsleeves or even just their clothing. This warning has surprised many roommates previously living at sea level who were previously sunburnt only in summer?

But in Denver, sky high + burnt to a crisp = many in December, too.

So if you're not already a merry mountain man, do GO . . . just get your manly buzzes on SLOW.

The rest of the Denver roommate lowdown:

• Denver is the capital city, commercial, financial, industrial and government center for Colorado.
• most populated in Colorado, with over 710,000 people, almost 3 million in the greater metro area
• on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by 3 mountain ranges
• changeable climate, extremely hot or cold temperatures tend to be brief - you could actually walk around in a parka at one moment and a short sleeved shirt comfortably during another on the same day . . . but all four seasons are generally low humidity and sunny!
• One of Denver's nicknames is "The Mile-High City" as its official elevation is 5280 feet above sea level. Many say most of Denver is somewhat higher than one mile, but that's not as cute. Take home point: It's more or less a mile above sea level and that is officially high to very high altitude in terms of any health warnings.
• home to Metropolitan State College, Regis University, Colorado School of Mines, University of Colorado, and the University of Denver
• About 90% of Denverites live within walking distance of a park. Denver is also low crime, especially for its size. We imagine most should imagine this correlation extremely meaningful too.
• about 1/3 of residents are Mexican-American, making Denver one of their largest populations among US cities
• Denver's Cinco de Mayo celebration is attended by over half a million. Huge numbers also gather to celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, El Grito de la Independencia, and Denver's annual Lowrider show.
• Urban sprawl has become a problem along with the traffic and pollution that often come along with, but Denver is aggressively attempting to address the problem with its newer light rail.
• Regional Transportation District (RTD) operates light rail supplemented with buses, some with the nation's first "Green Fleet" public transports using alternative fuels - eight rail lines you can take from Downtown to many suburbs
• Denverites love their large local active bike culture and their network of trails all over the city, sometimes dedicated, sometimes merging with car traffic. Most drivers are respectful, but like most cities with a lot of cyclists, you need a good bike lock.
• Also legally in Denver, you can get pulled over for running a light or stop sign on a non-motorized 2-wheel bicycle too . . . but they usually target motorized vehicles
• The Denver metro produces more beer by volume than any other US city.
• You are not allowed to smoke within any bar or restaurant except outdoors on the patio. Has to be outdoor patio or against the law.
• Denver is large enough to feature at least a few top notch versions of dishes popular from most regions, but the local vibe cuisine calling itself "Western" might be beef, or it could be buffalo, which tastes like beef. Or it could be rattlesnake or cutthroat trout or Rocky Mountain oysters. Rocky Mountain oysters taste like beef too. Many thought they didn't after their first bite? Then later understood that in an important way, they still did taste like beef.

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience Denver's:

• The Money Museum: Ever seen $30 million in cold hard cash in person before? Would you like to make that happen? If you answered no then yes, have I got a museum for you!
• Denver Art Museum: Huge. You'll need the whole day to see it all. Discounts and free admissions available for students and seniors all the time, everyone else the first Saturday of the month.
• Denver Museum of Nature & Science: Is it planetarium time for you and your roommates? It really could be, any day of the year except Christmas.
• City Park: 330 acres near downtown, featuring playgrounds, a golf course, the Denver Zoo, the Museum of Nature and Science and . . . two lakes. This one park gets two whole lakes. And to think that some urban parks don't even get one lake, much less two! You and your roommates should consider yourselves lucky. Also probably go.
• Denver Zoo: Open every day, but hours vary, so check first. Uniquely featuring Bear Mountain, Primate Panorama, and Pioneer Train, the first US zoo train running on natural gas.
• Grizzly Rose: Western saloon! It's large, with line dancing and live music and yes, a mechanical bull. But you and your roommates don't have to ride it. Or even dance, if you rather not, that's optional too. What's not is watching others do all of that to country music, sometimes live, sometimes not, and then sometimes inebriation sometimes not. Whoo hoo?
  
  (No really, if inebriation is really the wrong environment for you, probably no, but if it's not a problem perhaps you plus roommates should saloon?)
• Red Rocks Amphitheatre: Stunningly beautiful concert stage, but live music isn't all you can see. There's almost 740 acres in total in Red Rocks Park, with many geologically significant nature trails featuring the stunning rocks of this unique transitional zone where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains at 6450 feet above sea level. Along with its flora and fauna. Also art galleries, two halls of fame, and an historical Trading Post that even on its own has its very own nature trail.

Here's the city of Denver's official gov.org for community programs, including activities and events, animals, arts & venues, housing, neighborhoods, getting around, and online services.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.


7.   From hoodmaps.com: a collaborative map where residents use tags describing social situations you're likely to find. Other users can thumb up or down, so the largest tags have been thumbed up the most.