Yes its true Ogden does not have the best rep for safety. However if you live close to the mountains in say North Ogden or nearby cities like Pleasant Grove and Clearfield you would probably find them very nice. I suppose that they might be a bit pricier as far as real estate but I personally would never live in Ogden and would gladly pay a little extra to live just outside.

North Ogden seems to be the area people recommend the most. Ogden itself is kind of an armpit, or it used to be. I hear it's getting better. But for safety and comfort, I'd stick with North Ogden or the surrounding cities, and avoid Ogden itself.

On this note, I wanted to jump in here and thank you all bigtime for the local advice you gave me recently on this very topic. I did take all that as part of my husband's & my decision on where to live. When you're across the country it's hard to know where to move. So, even after the tons of fun online research on all the areas, still having LOCAL Utahns was the greatest help.

We decided to stay outside of Ogden, but will definitely enjoy doing many things there for entertainment. And I have great hopes for Ogden's future w/the light rail coming and them having a goal to make it a more touristy destination. Amen for that! That may just help turn things around. Time will tell. I'm very much looking forward to the Ogden Nature Center, Dinosaur Park, the restaurants of all types to try & more. And the Prairie Schooner restaurant was just too cool!! The Ice Sheet is near Weber State, so that will be neat, too. And all the fun stuff to do all around the surrounding communities. I love the prices at your Family Rec. centers as well.

There's endless opportunities and adventures w/heavenly views in Utah! I just can't wait til my family & I are actually living there together. Soon - very soon!!

Yep, drove around North Ogden, Pleasant View, & Harrisville and boy are they the most beautiful views and still many areas to build as well. BTW, they are just getting ready to start building new houses on good size plots of land. Most will be from 1/4 to 1/2 acre I think. There's a premium for the 1/2 acre lots, but boy would that ever be nice. They're gonna build houses of many different sq. footage sizes. There should be a sign there if you drive thru. There are beautiful pre-existing houses up there on the market, too.

We prayed about it and in the end really went back to the same idea we started w/and were advised to do by both the LDS & non-LDS here - find an area w/lots of diversity for our family, especially our kiddies. Tho' I think the whole area will be similar within years. Just check out how fast Syracuse is building up all those brand new areas.

How funny - I came here in recent mths. not knowing much about Utah, but what I saw online. And now I feel almost like a local Utahn already. Know the general areas of the cities and lots about them. And have a lot of the 'insider' feel from you guys as well. Very cool to be moving into Utah after having been blessed with this great discussion site. What an awesome place for us all to get thru this process together! THANKS AGAIN!!

Take a look at Farr West. We bought a home on the Remuda golf course 4 months ago. Beautiful views of the mountains with very good housing prices.
If you are doing a real estate search online the zip code is that includes Farr West is 84404.

Of course Ogden hasn't had the best rep in the past people are beginning to suspect it will be the next Boulder Colorado. A 100 million dollar bond got past to refurb the whole school district with top of the line schools and equipment. There's the new downtown redevelopment project where historic Ogden meets future Ogden. We will be major transport hub for accross the Wasatch Front because we will be the pretty much the only city in the US where you can get off an airplane at SL International, jump on Light Rail, straight off light rail on to a gondola up to the mountains. The gonadola is still in the planning phase. Here in Ogden you could get off an airplane and be skiing in under an hour. This has been a real attraction to big companies to, companies like Atomic and Saloman are now calling Ogden home. We are the North American HQ for those companies. We have world class resorts on the mountains. It's not just winter sports either, there are manythings to do in the summer with the Ogden river redevelopment project. Ogden has had it's problems in the past, there is no denying that, but Ogden is about to burst and home values are going to skyrocket strickly because of all of the money that we are putting back into the city.

That's great news about all the investment that is being made into Ogden. Cities can turn around, so hoping for the best for Ogden as well. I hope it is able to be lifted up and become more & more of a great tourist destination over time. Sounds like there's great projects in the works, too.

Thanks for the update.

And like I said, there's many activities our own family is looking forward to doing there very soon, and that's not counting the neat restaurants to try!

I agree that Ogden is on the way up. There are certain areas downtown to avoid, but good things are happening. I wouldn't be too sure about the gondola, it seems far fetched and no actual proposal has been put forth. However, ignoring the gondola issue, Ogden has a lot to offer and is worth a look.

If you are interested in Weber County issues, check out http://wcforum.blogspot.com/
The site refers mostly to Ogden.

It's going to be fun to see Ogden go from what it is now (iffy) into something great. Watch it expand from the ground up. Just so proud of Ogden. About the gondola. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's kind of over doing it and all. A gondola just to get up to two resorts (eventually) It would be kind of cool still to say "You can get off an airplane and never rent a car to go skiing.