Idaho Real Estate & Relocation Guide

Boise, Idaho

Population: 216,248

Located in Ada County

Boise, Idaho

The Boise area is a great place to live and raise a family. Whether it's the vibrant cultural and recreational opportunities, the friendly people or the mild climate, Boise and the surrounding communities afford a quality of life second to none. Good jobs, affordable housing and a safe, clean and vibrant downtown all add up to a great place to live! Boise has been cited by publications like Forbes, Fortune and Sunset for its quality of life.

Boise and its surrounding metropolitan area have seen dramatic growth through the 1990s and 2000s. As of 2004 the city of Boise estimated the metropolitan area (Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell) had a population of 526,656. The Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho (COMPASS) puts Boise's population as of 2005 at just more than 208,000 people, up 11 percent from the 2000 Census figures.

Economy
Boise is the headquarters of Idaho Power, Boise (Formerly Boise Cascade), Micron Technology, Simplot, Idaho Pacific Lumber Company, WinCo Foods, and Idaho Timber Corporation. Hewlett-Packard has a large complex in Boise which specializes in scanners and printers and is one of the largest private employers in the area, second only to Micron. Other high-tech employers include Bodybuilding.com, Crucial.com, MarkMonitor, Blackfin, Treetop Tech, Keynetics, Sybase and Microsoft. Technology investment has become increasingly important to the city. For example, Keynetics Inc., a Boise-based technology incubator, operates a portfolio of companies including the Internet retailer ClickBank, and PayTrack, a provider of payment processing and fraud control solutions to merchants. Boise also has thriving in-bound technical call centers like Teleperformance USA which boasts clients such as Apple and AT&T. Qwest, T-Mobile, and DirecTV also are major players in the local call-center industry in Boise.

Varney Airlines, founded by Walter Varney, was formed in Boise. The company is the root of present day United Airlines, which still serves the city at the newly renovated and upgraded Boise Airport.

Education
The city is home to the Boise School District, which includes 34 elementary schools, 8 junior high schools, 5 high schools and 2 specialty schools. Part of the Meridian School District (the largest district in Idaho) overlaps into Boise city limits.

The city is home to six public high schools: Boise High School, Borah High School, Capital High School, Timberline High School as well as the Meridian district's Centennial High School and the alternative Mountain Cove High School. Boise's private schools include Bishop Kelly High School (Catholic), and Baccalaureate accredited Riverstone Community School.

Post-secondary educational options in Boise include Boise State University, University of Phoenix as well as a wide range of technical schools. Boise is home to Boise Bible College, an undergraduate degree-granting college that exists to train leaders for churches as well as missionaries for the world.

Boise is one of the largest cities in the United States that does not have a community college. The issue has received a fair amount of attention from city and state officials in recent years. As of May 2007 a community college special district was formed, with the intention of starting a community college in Nampa Idaho.

Culture
Numbering about 15,000, Boise's Basque community is the largest Basque community in the United States and the third largest in the world outside Argentina and the Basque Country in Spain and France. A large Basque festival known as Jaialdi is held once every five years (next in 2010). Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the "Basque Block". Boise's mayor, David H. Bieter, is of Basque descent.

Boise is also a regional hub for jazz and theater. The Gene Harris Jazz Festival is hosted in Boise each spring. The city is also home to a number of museums, including the Boise Art Museum, Idaho Historical Museum, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Idaho Black History Museum and the Discovery Center of Idaho. Several theater groups operate in the city, including the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Boise Little Theatre and the Boise Contemporary Theater among others. On the first Thursday of each month, a gallery stroll is hosted in the city's core business district by the Downtown Boise Association. The city also holds an Egyptian Theatre.

The Morrison-Knudsen Nature Center offers a refreshing stroll with water features and wildlife experiences just east of downtown. It is located adjacent to Municipal Park. It features live fish and wildlife exhibits. There are bridges, viewing areas into the water, bird and butterfly gardens, waterfalls, and a visitor's center (which is free to the public).

In 1896, the Ahavath Beth Israel Temple was completed to serve the Jewish community of Boise. Avavath Beth Israel is the nation's oldest continually-used temple on the western side of the Mississippi.

Boise (along with Valley and Boise Counties) will host the Winter 2009 Special Olympics World Games. More than 2,500 athletes from over 85 countries will participate.


Source: wikipedia.org Photo Source: wikipedia.org and cityofboise.org