Erie or Johnstown?

Erie points at Boulder, Johnstown points at I-25. That is the whole comparison, and almost everything else follows from it. Erie sits on the plateau between Coal Creek and the interstate, twenty minutes from Boulder on Arapahoe Road and thirty-five from Denver; the people moving there are largely working in or near Boulder and declining to pay Boulder prices. Johnstown sits on the US 34 interchange itself, ten minutes from Loveland, fifteen from Greeley, twenty-five from Fort Collins and fifty from Denver. It is the better base if your work is in northern Colorado and the worse one if it is in Boulder.

The other real difference is the downtown. Erie has an old coal-town grid on Briggs Street that filled up in the last decade — a cidery in the 1889 Davis building, a Creole café, tapas, a brewery in the old fire station — and it is walkable if you live near it, which most of Erie does not. Johnstown’s Parish Avenue is quieter and its commercial centre of gravity has moved out to the interchange, where the shopping is. If you want to walk to a pint on a Friday, Erie is more likely to deliver it; if you want to be five minutes from a big-box run, Johnstown is.

Schools split them too, and not simply. Most of Erie is St. Vrain Valley, based in Longmont, with the Boulder County side in Boulder Valley — so the district you get depends on which street you buy on. Johnstown is Weld RE-5J throughout, which is one fewer thing to check. Neither is a reason to choose a town on its own, but the Erie split is a reason to ask before you make an offer.

The short answer

Boulder commute and a walkable old downtown: Erie. Northern Colorado commute, simpler schools and the interstate at the end of the road: Johnstown.