Boulder as its own utopia: Town where JonBenet Ramsey died is tan, tall and smug

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Sunday, August 20, 2006 | Kimberly Dellaca-Badgett

[Gondring]

[...] I was surprised by my own criticism of a city that people often refer to as paradise.

First some facts. Boulder is one of the five richest counties in the United States, but it has the lowest rate of charitable giving in Colorado. [...]

[...] Boulder has the second-highest grossing organic food market in the country. [...]Boulder is one of only three counties in Colorado that did not vote for George Bush.

But scratch the surface of the utopian bubble and you'll witness people punching each other in the organic market's parking lot over the last available space and you'll find yourself questioning why people who claim to be against the "oil war" didn't bring their bike anyway.

[...]And when houses routinely start at more than a million dollars, the only hippies that can afford housing in Boulder are of the soft-palmed-check-of-the-month-trust-fund variety.

Boulder is all about doing the right thing, as long as the right thing doesn't require making a sacrifice or a contribution. [...]

[...]

Conformity to nonconformity is required to get along in Boulder. [...] The Ramseys were the wrong kind of people in Boulder. It's only OK to be rich here if you wear patchouli and pretend you live in a tent. The Ramseys didn't.

[...]Boulder was smug when JonBenet was murdered. If the Ramseys' life went to hell, it was proof that the conservative life was the wrong one.[...]

So when reporters asked me [...] how the city feels now that a suspect has been arrested in the Ramsey case, I answer that we should feel ashamed and sad but probably don't because Boulder isn't the kind of place where self-examination results in anything more than a trip down the road for a shot of wheat grass. [...]

[Gondring]

A San Franciscan criticizing Boulder -- that's rich.

Actually, the article says: "Kimberly Dellaca-Badgett, who grew up in Mill Valley, is a Boulder writer."

[Gondring]

State College/Penn State is another example where old alumni have no clue how much the place has slumped down into the muck since they attended, when it was football games, rah-rah, etc.

[quantim]

Did you know this?  He lost by about 500 votes.  But safe to say Charlevoix is Boulder with water.  Serious wealthy.  We'll never know if he is a conservative or not, politically speaking.

18-AUG-2006: John and Patsy Ramsey, parents of slain beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, are shown during the election for Michigan's 105th District at his campaign headquarters in Charlevoix, Mich., Aug. 3, 2004. A man suspected in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey nearly a decade ago was arrested Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006 in Thailand, District Attorney Mary Lacey said. She disclosed no details about the suspect before a news conference scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006. Ramsey was one of six candiates for the Republican nomination for Michigan's 105th District.

[ableLight]

I lived there a while. Honestly, it looks like Bosnia. I never understood why people thought Boulder was so 'rich' or utopian. The streets are all torn up, the buildings are old, there is a very high proportion of homeless to the general population there, etc.

South of Denver is Castle Pines. Now THAT is a nice place. It may have something to do with the liberal local politics in Boulder, but that place is no paradise IMO.

[DoughtyOne]

LOL, I hear ya. My Uncle used to live in Boulder. He was about as far from the people described in the article as a person could get.

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you. Fair enough.

I've often thought that IQ was somewhat of a poor guage of intelligence. Seems to me this article somewhat confirms that.

[NittanyLion]

State College (PA)

Nothing liberal about State College, friend. It sits in one of the most conservative counties in PA.

[livius]

Boulder is creepy. I have a family member who is a police officer in Denver, and I go out occasionally to visit her - and hear stories about the well-off Boulder moms and dads who refuse to come down to Denver to pick up their stoned 14 yr olds who have been arrested while brawling/shoplifting/soliciting on the streets of Denver at 2:00 a.m. I think Boulder is a very weird culture - liberalism carried to its ultimate extreme.

[oprahstheantichrist]

"Boulder is one of the five richest counties in the United States, but it has the lowest rate of charitable giving in Colorado."

"Liberals are COLD hearted, self absorbed and CHEAP when it comes to anyone else. "

I can no longer refer to them as "liberals." Look it up, the word "liberal" means "generous." They are leftists, they are bolshevics, many words can describe them, but "liberal" is NOT one of them. I think we all need to revise our vocabulary.

[oprahstheantichrist]

I visited CO for the first time in July. It seems that, like Florida, Colorado is a land of both great darkness and great light.

[oprahstheantichrist]

"I had to cut out a lot of good swipes...."

The author's style is almost Ann Coulter-like!

[jan in Colorado]

They are leftists, they are bolshevics, many words can describe them, but "liberal" is NOT one of them. I think we all need to revise our vocabulary.

Great point!

Another word that needs to be revised is MSM...there is NOTHING mainstream about them. The correct term is

ENEMEDIA!

As for Boulder...a beautiful city full of liberals America hating, cowardly, self absorbed, tree hugging leftists!

[luv2ski]

I was born in Boulder...and grew up to college age there. What I just read is NOT the Boulder I left... The Boulder I left was football games, parades with a lot of horses downtown...rodeos.. Of course we are talking decades ago...but, I did notice in the years after I moved to Texas...and would go for a visit...the "atmosphere" did change.. LOL..I have to admit though...that I am jealous. My father built our home by himself on an acre of land...and when we moved they sold it for 15,000. According to this article...I think I am gonna be sick.

There are 2 things that happened to make Boulder the way it is now: in the 60's and 70's the hippies gathered there big time and stayed. Many are now college professors (remember Ward Churchill?). A lot of college towns are super liberal because of that (look at Austin). The other change was that many years ago, Boulder enacted a moratorium on building within the city limits. They wanted to "stop growth". This had the effect of exploding growth EVERYWHERE except within the city limits of Boulder. So, now Niwot, Louisville, Broomfield, Superior, etc are huge and bustling and Boulder sits there with all the traffic and none of the tax base. The moratorium also created a real estate market within Boulder that made it impossible for anyone except for the very wealthy to afford housing. I still have friends up there and don't know how they can stand it. They just tried to help their Catholic church raise money for a new building and had to abandon the campaign because the members would not give.

[Gondring]

Nothing liberal about State College, friend. It sits in one of the most conservative counties in PA.

It sits in Centre County, which was largely 2:1 for Bush over Kerry...but State College itself was about 1:1 and is far from conservative these days, with the large university influence. It's far from Boulder or Berkeley, but it's not like it once was.

However, I fear that today's students, for example, don't see the absurdity of paying Patrick Califia-Rice (described as an "advocate for sadomasochism and sex with children") to speak at the campus...they have already been numbed to such deviancy.

[NittanyLion]

It sits in Centre County, which was largely 2:1 for Bush over Kerry...but State College itself was about 1:1 and is far from conservative these days, with the large university influence. It's far from Boulder or Berkeley, but it's not like it once was.

I was really differentiating between the town and the campus. The campus is as you state fairly liberal, as are most. However, I would say the town itself is still quite conservative.

[BluH2o]

A San Franciscan criticizing Boulder -- that's rich.

Yeah ... except for Boulderites it would be hard to find anyone more smug about their city than San Franciscans. At least on till the next major earthquake.