Replying to Is Boise, Idaho the new Denver / Salt lake City?

What's up guys.

The word is out: Mountain Cities and Western states are rad. For natives of these places, recent years have brought hoards of new people; transplants from states like Cali and the East Coast. As a college senior in NY ( not the city), I've been planning my move out West ever since the start of highschool. Over the years, I've kept close tabs on the state of affairs in Denver through online discussions, statistics, and conversations with people who live there.

The general consensus is that Denver's growth has somewhat spoiled the initial charm the city held. While still a fantastic city, the traffic congestion, sprawl, and sky high rent means unless you have $$$ and time to kill sitting in i70, Denver's quality of life has decreased.

Salt lake city has experienced far less growth. Affordable rent, less crowds, short drives to the mountains all sound great. I've never visited SLC ( drove to Bryce / Zion though so I know how fucking awesome Utah is) but the Mormon driven agenda of the state is a bit of a turn off for me. Nothing against Mormons, they're super nice (too nice?).

Boise seems like it has a great quality of living, is handling it's growth well, and has decent skiing ( though not as good as Denver / SLC) . Idaho isn't one of the states that gets alot of recognition, especially compared to Colorado

So Newschoolers, I've always trusted you guys. I connect with you so much more than the average Redditor or citydata.com user. If you had to choose between Boise, SLC, or Denver, what's your pick? I'm stoked to move to any of these three cities, looking forward to landing a job in Accounting / Finance, skiing, partying, and meeting rad people

----TL;DR---

Has Boise become a top contender for young people looking for a Mountain / outdoorsy city?