Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
It looks like you were onto something here. Seems the cacophony is growing. Stonemans_rowJ's post would attest to it.
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I think these people have always been in Denver and I know a decent number of them (a couple of the writers personally) — they are the same people who actually complain about Colfax being less shady because "it lost character" or still wish south Broadway was half-abandoned and nothing but used book stores that closed at 5pm. They're the people who fret over how "dangerous" Five Points is or how 16th St. Mall is nothing but crap but haven't been to either in years and vehemently argue against any development to turn either around.
My favorite is the attitude towards north Denver: my family and friends have lived in what is now Jefferson Park and Highland forever, my parents actually met while living at the incredibly shady white apartment building at 26th and Clay. Yet I meet people who grew up in Wash Park or Belcaro or South Park Hill or Littleton who wish LoHi was "like it used to be before it got gentrified."
I sure don't. It sucks that a lot of my friends families had to move, and that the neighborhood is full of annoying yuppies that don't understand how to walk politely on sidewalks and generally act like they own everything they survey, but no one wants to live in the neighborhood it was before. At least people can use the park without worrying about gang fights breaking out, or grill out on their billion-dollar patios without a drive-by happening in front of them… I would rather have a city full of stucco-covered stick builds than a place dotted with random empty lots, burned-out buildings full of crackheads, and shops that close after dark because the dealers on the corner scare them away.
But it is easier to mourn the loss of the neighborhood that used to be cool but they never went after dark than it is to admit that the way the neighborhood used to be wasn't some kind of working-class utopia.
It's also easier to dismiss everything about new architecture than to admit that maybe people moving here and enlivening the city is a good thing too (and that the balance is the hard part that we should be talking about. )
It's easier to complain about the current infill than to admit that 95% of Cap Hill, Congress Park and Wash Park are cookie-cutter 100-year old+ brick houses that were designed with cost in mind, and that when they were cheap and mostly rentals a good majority of the landlords could care less what happened to them and a large number of the buildings were falling apart.
Reality doesn't get front page Westword articles because it isn't cool or sensational or hark back to a time when the author was in a terrible band and hung out at Muddy's.
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