DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[bunt_q]

Joel Kotkin is a hack. In this instance, I think he is probably right, although more for affordability and a lack of any other options than a "desire for space," which is hardly what you get with newer suburban development these days anyways. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, as they say. I think the observation that builders don't really know how to build what people want is absolutely true, I see that every day. There's a definite lack of creativity in the development industry. And local governments are basically unimaginative and too afraid to challenge the status quo in any forceful way. I can assure you, based on entitled development alone, the "suburban sprawl" we've come to know and love will still be being built 30 years from now. Nothing is changing in that regard. That's why I focus so heavily on the percentage of overall growth Denver is capturing - a tiny percentage - growing tinier every time somebody bitched about a five story building). Until that goes higher, all of the transit and a few thousand units downtown are meaningless. Transit is never going to serve the exurbs effectively unless we build them differently, which we are not doing. Basically, we folks who have a weak orgasm every time an inconsequential new project goes up on Denver Infill - we are part of the problem for not being willing to fight the difficult fights, and caring instead about building ourselves a tidy little island of urbanism to play on, while for most of the rest of metro and nearly all of its people, nothing changes.