We visit Boulder regularly, since our son is there. It's not a horrible place at all. It is in a beautiful setting, and it has all the virtues of a prosperous community. It is clean, offers excellent educational and medical services and excellent shopping for many things. I'm not a big shopper, but I like shopping there for outdoor recreation.
The downsides of Boulder are somewhat political, and ultimately economic. It is a very liberal community, due in good measure to the university. There are also a lot of people migrating from California and the east coast. Boulder is heavily anti-2nd amendment. If it weren't, perhaps the shooter at the King Soopers grocery would have been stopped sooner. We'll never know. Gun ownership in Boulder involves local restrictions and is generally frowned upon by many locals.
Although the views are gorgeous, air quality can be poor due to wildfires in the state and further west. They get smoke from California fires. There are lots of dead trees in the Rockies due to pine beetles. You can drive past miles and miles of standing dead timber. The thought of being there during a lightning strike is pretty sobering. They're not done with wildfires. Boulderites are very serious about climate change and tend to attribute many things to mankind's depradations upon nature. If you're there, it doesn't pay to debate these issues.
Boulderites embrace the outdoors. That's a really nice thing. I like it too. Boulder has a commitment to outdoor recreation. They have a lot of open space for recreation - also a nice thing. There is a green belt (brown during drought) around Boulder so that everyone has ready access to bike paths, hiking, dog walking, etc. Nobody can build in the green belt. Building heights are restricted so that everyone in Boulder can see the mountains. Also very nice. The problem with all these nice things like green space and building restrictions is that it drives up the cost of housing. Boulder has one of the highest real estate markets in the nation. People still want to live there, so the areas outside the green belt are getting heavily developed. (Last night some of those places burned.)
If our son stays in Boulder after the stresses of wildfires and having his grocery store shot up, we'll still visit. I don't see us ever moving there. It's too expensive and too restrictive for our taste. It is beautiful though, in a planned community sort of way.
Nobody is surprised they say that, but what does it mean? Sounds like an excuse to fund things that have nothing to do with the real causes.