Boulder Rated Healthiest Happiest City In U.S.

Mountain City Rated Best Place To Live in the Country

A city that is often made fun of in Colorado for being so politically correct and liberal is getting the last laugh.

Some right wingers (by Colorado standards) referred to it as the People's Republic of Boulder.

A new Gallup Poll, called the-Healthways Well-Being Index, has rated it the healthiest and happiest city in the country. It was based on an analysis of 350,000 people.

Some would say that it could be because it is the nation’s pot capital. Boulder police are said to be more likely to pull over an under-age drinker than a weed smoker. And that was true before it became virtually legal in Colorado last year.

In reality, it had been a drawing point for the Beat Generation and marathon runners years before Robin WilliamsRobin Williams, an alien named Mork, made it his home in a TV sitcom that became very popular after it premiered in 1978.

Shorter moved to Boulder in 1970 to train at its base elevation of 5,400 feet. He won the marathon Gold Medal two years later in Munich. Many other famous athletes followed him.

Allen Ginsburg founded the Jack KerouacJack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder in 1974.

The University of Colorado attracted many to the area, and several major federal scientific agencies have offices in the mountain setting. And in the 1960s it established rules limiting growth above a certain level to protect that backdrop, avoiding the ridgeline development that has plagued so much of Colorado.

The five Flatirons, are inspiring, though sad for me. I still remember waking up in nearby Denver to hear that a friend had died climbing them.

Growth controls have resulted in making housing very expensive, but kept the city to about 95,000. The median age is 29.