Yeah, these statistics are screwy. No way Denver has less people than Boston. I've been told Denver has two million people--but that page says less than half a million. It must be only counting the city proper, not the suburbs. Heck, the Denver Metro area is sometimes considered to extend all the way to Boulder. 104th Avenue cuts right through Westminster, which is definitely part of the Denver Metro area, even if it's not really part of the city of Denver.

This is how I figure cities: If you have streets or avenues numbered sequentally, the city doesn't stop until you stop the count and switch to something else. Hence Boulder is not part of Denver because it has it's own street numbers, whereas Westminster *is* part of Denver since 104th Avenue is 104th in line counting from 1st Avenue which is somewhere in Denver.

Also, I'm always amused at your fear of Boston, Sam. Is it *just* the twisty streets and bad drivers, or something else that makes you fear the city? Sure, I've only driven in Boston once and don't ever plan to do it again, but only because it's one of those insane east-coast Colonial cities that grew up haphazardly and randomly and it's basically impossible to find your way around if you don't really know the city well already. And the drivers are all maniacs. But there's only really one "bad" section of Boston as far as crime goes, and that's still nothing compared to most other cities.

Denver is nothing to drive in. Even I can generally find my way around, and I get lost VERY easily. It's all nice and grid-like, and the drivers, while typical tail-gaiting pushy city drivers, are not maniacal. Personally, I think I'd *love* to live in downtown Denver, except for the fact that the traffic would be much worse for my commute. And traffic I can deal with unless I'm in a hurry. And once you learn the patterns, you learn to make sure you give yourself enough time to get where you're going. In theory.

-- Dave

-- Dave