DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[Brainpathology]

Just got back from consecutive trips to Denver and Chicago. Giant reality check for me in terms of dulling the polish on Denver for the moment. It's still better than nothing that lots are being filled with buildings. I'll not ever change my mind on that.

But... in the loop in Chicago, literally next door to Columbia College where my partner will be going next year for ASL interp. 259k for a 1/1 750 sq/ft condo. 220 for a 1/1 no footage listed. They go up from there.. and of course if I had 20 million I could find a way to spend it there easily.

Up a few blocks to boystown.. 195-220-300k easily gets 2bds. One roomate and your HOA's and 1/3 of your mortgage is gone. One week of renting during Market Days and several months of mortgage gone.

A few red line stops up to Edgewater. Knock about 20-30k off of the above.

Denver downtown the least expensive home is 223k at Brooks.. for 1/1.. without parking..so add 50k if you want that. (and in Denver you still need that). Next least is 259k.

I'm definitely a homer, cheerleading, infuriating Denver booster. But even I'm not so stupid to see the absolute unadulterated ridiculousness of these prices. There are places relatively affordable (and studios were even less) next to GREAT colleges and universities or along real live transit which runs frequently and everywhere you'd ever want to be. Museums, and cultural attractions, music/food scenes etc that Denver won't aspire to for another century at least (which would be fine if they weren't priced as it is).

On the other hand..the least expensive home in Denver is next to 3 schools that can aspire to mediocrity if they work exceptionally hard at it. Transit which is in its infancy (and going sort of in the right direction in fits and starts) from an agency which still has trouble taking money from its customers, and can't be bothered to protect riders from things like rain/hail that fall from the sky at their main jewel of a transit center. Culture and museums which are at times exemplary (at times). Plenty of great reasons to live in Denver actually IF it cost around 66-75% of the homes I was looking at in Chicago.

It's probably time for all of you there to admit that Denver is probably done in terms of normal people living there. You've turned it into MechaBoulder and it's now a museum city like San Francisco. There will be stragglers there who got in when they could. But for everyone else it will be a great place to visit and then leave to whatever city is more affordable and sane (Aurora?? blech).

My fellow liberals there have more or less destroyed any dreams real people have of permanently living in a vibrant, living, organic downtown. I doubt they should ever be forgiven for that, and it will go down in my mind in the same file as the wholesale bulldozing of the city in the 70's. We like to complain that conservatives don't learn from their mistakes (or facts) but in less than a single generation we've managed to destroy downtown AGAIN with not even the faintest signs of a willingness to fix it this time.

If you love Denver and want to own a piece of it you might as well buy a snowglobe of it on 16th.. that's the only view of it that a normal person can ever afford now.