Bumping a very old thread here after spending a weekend in Ogden and coming away confused.
Visited with my wife (we don't have kids) to see if it's a place we'd be interested in moving to. Landed on Ogden as an option due to its mountain access, cool looking and walkable downtown, and houses are more affordable than where we'd be moving from.
We stayed right on 25th street downtown in a condo. Spent a few hours just driving up and down all the north-south streets named after presidents/founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, etc.) between 20th street and 30th. Kind of an arbitrary north and south limit, but did that to keep a balance between what I mentioned earlier was the draw; proximity to mountains and the downtown. We went as far East as the town goes.
I've browsed Zillow in Ogden pretty regularly for the past 6 months or so in the area mentioned above, so I knew there were some rundown homes. The downtown was decent, a little more dive-y than I expected, but we were still shocked by how ****ty most of the area we drove through was. East bench area seemed fine (east of Harrison), but other than that it seemed like a good portion of houses on any block were in terrible condition. There were some real nice homes mixed in, but most of those you're still across the street from a hell hole. It didn't feel overly sketchy or unsafe, just not maintained well at all.
The confusing part of it is how a town in its location with its historic charm can get to this point. Standing in the middle of 25th street downtown and looking east is a Telluride level view with the old buildings and peaks in view, and I just can't comprehend how a place with those assets gets rundown like this. I'm guessing population decline for nearly 40 years from the 50s-90s contributed, but I don't even understand how that can happen in a place like this.
Despite all my complaining I'm not trying to **** on anyone's town/home, I'm trying to find its redemptive qualities. Are there other areas in Ogden or Utah we should look at that has the qualities we are looking for (proximity to mountains and proximity to cool restaurants/bars)?
TLDR: where in Ogden (or Utah in general) offers mountain access and walkability without a million dollar price tag? Came in expecting Ogden between Washington (west limit) to Harrison (east limit) & 30th (south limit) to 20th (north limit) to be that, but it just wasn't a nice area.
Visited with my wife (we don't have kids) to see if it's a place we'd be interested in moving to. Landed on Ogden as an option due to its mountain access, cool looking and walkable downtown, and houses are more affordable than where we'd be moving from.
We stayed right on 25th street downtown in a condo. Spent a few hours just driving up and down all the north-south streets named after presidents/founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, etc.) between 20th street and 30th. Kind of an arbitrary north and south limit, but did that to keep a balance between what I mentioned earlier was the draw; proximity to mountains and the downtown. We went as far East as the town goes.
I've browsed Zillow in Ogden pretty regularly for the past 6 months or so in the area mentioned above, so I knew there were some rundown homes. The downtown was decent, a little more dive-y than I expected, but we were still shocked by how ****ty most of the area we drove through was. East bench area seemed fine (east of Harrison), but other than that it seemed like a good portion of houses on any block were in terrible condition. There were some real nice homes mixed in, but most of those you're still across the street from a hell hole. It didn't feel overly sketchy or unsafe, just not maintained well at all.
The confusing part of it is how a town in its location with its historic charm can get to this point. Standing in the middle of 25th street downtown and looking east is a Telluride level view with the old buildings and peaks in view, and I just can't comprehend how a place with those assets gets rundown like this. I'm guessing population decline for nearly 40 years from the 50s-90s contributed, but I don't even understand how that can happen in a place like this.
Despite all my complaining I'm not trying to **** on anyone's town/home, I'm trying to find its redemptive qualities. Are there other areas in Ogden or Utah we should look at that has the qualities we are looking for (proximity to mountains and proximity to cool restaurants/bars)?
TLDR: where in Ogden (or Utah in general) offers mountain access and walkability without a million dollar price tag? Came in expecting Ogden between Washington (west limit) to Harrison (east limit) & 30th (south limit) to 20th (north limit) to be that, but it just wasn't a nice area.