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Metro Spokane Places to Live
2020 population: 52,917
Drive time to downtown Spokane: 40 minutes
Overall Character: ★★★★★
Urban: ★★★★★
Suburban: ☆☆☆☆☆
Walkability: ★★★☆☆
Market Activity: ★★★★★
Farm Town: ☆☆☆☆☆
Timber Town: ★★★★★
Lake / River Town: ★★★★★
Coeur d'Alene Community Description
The coolest things have French names – mirepoix, retrouvailles, foie gras – and Coeur d’Alene is no exception. For decades, the city was a market center for regional timber and mining activities. The transition into a full-blown resort town started slowly back in the early 1980s when Duane Hagadon decided to build a big hotel downtown on the lakefront. The resort market fuse burned slowly until the early 2000s, which is when Duane hit black powder. A full-blown boom ensued, and Coeur d’Alene hasn’t looked back since. Frenetic growth along the many diverse Lake Coeur d’Alene beaches and waterfront properties have attracted a mass of wealth to the area.
Downtown Coeur d’Alene is healthy as ever. With a preserved main street, towering condos, and ample public space along the waterfront, not the least of which being Tubbs Hill; it can’t be argued those who made decisions during Cd’A’s formative years didn’t have vision.
There are still remnants of Coeur d’Alene’s timber and mining soul that have a hard time comprehending the quantum shift the city has seen since the mid-1980s. From time to time, they show themselves, and their paranoia toward change, in baffling ways. In 2010 and 2011, for instance, Coeur d’Alene city council wanted to spend millions on reinventing McEuen Park, which was nothing more than a few baseball diamonds but located right downtown on the waterfront.
Arrogantly, I’d like to think SpokanePlanner represents pieces of the metro’s soul. For three years out of my young life, I lived in Coeur d’Alene. I’ve partied in Coeur d’Alene. I married a woman from Coeur d’Alene. I’ve lost fistfights in Coeur d’Alene. I’ve snobbily hated Coeur d’Alene for a variety of urban design and development reasons. I was the Hearings Examiner for Kootneai County in Coeur d’Alene. I wrote a (bad) book in Coeur d’Alene. My first born was born in Coeur d’Alene. My mother-in-law lives in Coeur d’Alene. I learned to golf on a par 3 golf course that was really nothing more than a bar nestled on a few acres in Coeur d’Alene. I’ve jumped into Lake Coeur d’Alene after midnight in my skinnies about a million times. I went to North Idaho College, which is on Lake Coeur d’Alene, and I’ve worked in Coeur d’Alene in a variety of service positions before I knew which side of the bed I should piss on.
I know Coeur d’Alene well.
But it’s a strange thing watching a city mature into something you don’t really know anymore, even when you’re an urban planner. By virtue of its geography, Coeur d’Alene has some north Idaho left in her, but it is changing before our very eyes.
These days, as rapidly as Coeur d’Alene is changing, I’m just glad she gave me the memories. Cd’A is such a great town that soon there might even be a CoeurdAlenePlanner.
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