DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I agree! People use "peer cities" in lots of different ways, so its helpful to identify a definition that you are relying upon when you use the term. I think your definition is really good - similar "cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political" characteristics. I might add: similar in population and historical development paths.

Also, honestly, I think when most people identify a "peer city" they are in part speaking aspirationally - what city do they admire and WANT to be like.

By these definitions, Denver is nothing like Phoenix or Las Vegas, even though those are large, booming western cities. In 1910, when Denver had already developed into one of the largest cities in the West with 213,000 people, Phoenix was about the size of Alamosa and Las Vegas was similar to current day Fairplay. That history matters in the development of a culture, mindset, and way of life.

The cities you mention - Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis - have much more in common with Denver in terms of culture, history and lifestyle, not to mention their look and feel ('bones') and/or have features that many people in Denver would like to emulate. Kansas City? St. Louis? Las Vegas? Phoenix? Nashville? Charlotte?

Not so much.

San Francisco, though not a Denver peer city, still has more in common with Denver than does Phoenix or Las Vegas.

I would also not include Dallas as a peer city, given the huge population differences between Dallas and Denver and the VAST, VAST cultural differences between the cities and between Colorado and Texas. (Marijuana is STILL seriously ILLEGAL in Texas.. WTF?).

Austin is a little trickier and, although I would not currently think of it as a "peer city", it may well become one with the rapid changes and growth happening there.

I agree with every single word you wrote as if I wrote it myself. You too, mr1138.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CastleScott

^ Very well said-thanks Ken.

I agree!! I always enjoy Ken's well articulated urban view of life.

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis are not only good peers for Denver population-wise, but there are cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political attributes that the four cities have in common...

Yes, I assumed that politics was at the root of a lot of our differences as well as 'central city' versus the more general metro area.

From my POV when I think of going places whether Seattle or Omaha, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea where boundaries are so I took more of a metro view of things.

Let me talk about two cities to better explain "my" thinking.

Seattle is not one of them but I never stated Seattle should not be considered a peer city. I would note that Seattle does have some significant differences from Denver. With respect to bones a quick look at a map indicates how/why Seattle's bones are very different from Denver's. Seattle has also had uniquely different economic drivers. Companies like Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Costco and ofc Amazon are all household names. Arrow Electronics may be a very good company but I'd venture that most people in Denver have no clue what they do. Both places are very liberal though so there's that.

Why not San Diego?
San Diego has a lot in common with Denver. Both city/metros have grown in a linear fashion: San Diego along the ocean; Denver along the mountains. Both cities have then spread out to the east. Both cities have prominent downtowns although San Diego's is perhaps more historically interesting. Both cities have well-diversified economies; while San Diego may rate higher both places benefit from tourism and are good convention cities.

So while I never said Seattle shouldn't be a peer city I did have San Diego higher on "my list." Only negative with San Diego is perhaps the politics is too conservative for some people?

Portland? Meh
IMO Denver is head and shoulders above Portland. There are some interesting companies like Intel and Nike which aren't actually in Portland. Portland's airport pales in comparison to DIA. Portland has professional NBA and MLS teams but no NFL, MLB or NHL. Denver is much more of a tourism and convention city that Portland.

Is Portland a nice city and place to live? That's my understanding and it presumably fits CherryCreek's point of "cities I like."

Btw, I did agree with Minneapolis being a good peer city if one read what I previously stated.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I agree!! I always enjoy Ken's well articulated urban view of life.

Why not San Diego?
San Diego has a lot in common with Denver. Both city/metros have grown in a linear fashion: San Diego along the ocean; Denver along the mountains. Both cities have then spread out to the east. Both cities have prominent downtowns although San Diego's is perhaps more historically interesting. Both cities have well-diversified economies; while San Diego may rate higher both places benefit from tourism and are good convention cities.

So while I never said Seattle shouldn't be a peer city I did have San Diego higher on "my list." Only negative with San Diego is perhaps the politics is too conservative for some people?

I'd also say it's economic that keeps SD and Denver from being compared together as close peers- San Diego has more in common with Colorado Spring than Denver due to both cities heavy reliance on military spending. I believe that studies have shown that both have ~25% of local GDP is attributable to direct spending that is defense related for both cities. For example, San Diego has about 125K of it's workforce either uniformed or DOD-civilian, which is a large percentage of the overall workforce. You probably have to take Denver back to the 1980's with the extractive resource sector to find a time time when the city was so reliant on one industry.

The comparison of the two was historically valid and still is today from a tourism perspective, but I would say that the economic diversification that Denver has undergone versus SD's continued reliance of DoD dollars reduces the peer relationship here.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

I'd also say it's economic that keeps SD and Denver from being compared together as close peers- San Diego has more in common with Colorado Spring than Denver due to both cities heavy reliance on military spending. I believe that studies have shown that both have ~25% of local GDP is attributable to direct spending that is defense related for both cities. For example, San Diego has about 125K of it's workforce either uniformed or DOD-civilian, which is a large percentage of the overall workforce. You probably have to take Denver back to the 1980's with the extractive resource sector to find a time time when the city was so reliant on one industry.

The comparison of the two was historically valid and still is today from a tourism perspective, but I would say that the economic diversification that Denver has undergone versus SD's continued reliance of DoD dollars reduces the peer relationship here.

I would add that San Diego is often thought of as a satellite city in the massive Southern California (LA) urban mega-plex. This makes it harder to have its own identity (other than the Navy town/tourist town one you mentioned).

The other cities mentioned (Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland) as peers are clearly kings of the domains with which they are associated and operate.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

The comparison of the two was historically valid and still is today from a tourism perspective, but I would say that the economic diversification that Denver has undergone versus SD's continued reliance of DoD dollars reduces the peer relationship here.

Solid point.


It occurs to me
that many people don't understand or appreciate Denver's DNA. Certainly local icon Dana Crawford does and I'm also here to help.

All photos credit: RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post














If you don't understand Denver's western heritage then maybe Someday Soon.

[TakeFive]

Just admit it; I can

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

The other cities mentioned (Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland) as peers are clearly kings of the domains with which they are associated and operate.

I absolutely acknowledge that I'm easily outnumbered by (tainted) liberals and urbanists. This is afterall an 'urban' oriented blog and since I take more of a Chamber of Commerce view of things I can stand out like a sore thumb.

The biggest commonalities of those three cities and Denver is their liberal politics and urban (multimodal) TRANSIT. Portland and Seattle do have a more idyllic urban cores compared to many cities although a lot of that goes to personal preferences.

The irony is that I'm a Big Fan of RTD's light rail bones but that's not a commonly shared sentiment by urbanists. No question that Seattle is well on its way to becoming one of the best transit cities in the country so it would certainly fit the 'aspirational' model. But as they say: Denver can wish in one hand... and see what happens.

[fleury]

Interesting...

https://businessden.com/2019/01/10/36-st...lding-proposed-for-lodos-bell-park-site/

[CastleScott]

^ Interesting indeed hopefully this one's a go..

[CastleScott]

The irony is that I'm a Big Fan of RTD's light rail bones but that's not a commonly shared sentiment by urbanists.

Very true as in the past when I was on the "West Corridor light rail Committee" Portland was mentioned a lot, Minneapolis some and even Salt Lake City, St Louis and Dallas where mentioned more than Denver for their light rail endeavors. Even though Denver has good 'light rail bones" it did come with some big missed opportunities which urbanists around the country seem to know about.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by fleury

Interesting...

https://businessden.com/2019/01/10/36-st...lding-proposed-for-lodos-bell-park-site/

Isn’t this another one of those Denver recession indicators? If you start hearing about Tabor 2, Bell Tower and/or El Jebel Shrine you should start to think about cashing out of your stocks.

[InfillJunkie]

Originally Posted by BG918

Isn’t this another one of those Denver recession indicators? If you start hearing about Tabor 2, Bell Tower and/or El Jebel Shrine you should start to think about cashing out of your stocks.

Exactly!!

[CastleScott]

^ As a Federal employee who's working "with out pay" I surely agree (I cashed out of most of my stocks right after the Fed shutdown-rainy day funds when you need it)!

[InfillJunkie]

Any thoughts on this — anti development article from the Denver Post?

As development eats away at Denver’s green space, the “city within a park” is becoming a concrete metropolis

Bruce Finley
January 13, 2019 at 6:00 am

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/01/13/denver-green-space-urban-density/

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by InfillJunkie

Any thoughts on this — anti development article from the Denver Post?

As development eats away at Denver’s green space, the “city within a park” is becoming a concrete metropolis

Bruce Finley
January 13, 2019 at 6:00 am

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/01/13/denver-green-space-urban-density/

It's such an abuse of statistics... I'd like to see the increase in impervious area in the city of Denver correlated with the increase in population, but with Stapleton and Lowry removed as well as DIA - I would bet that the population increased significantly with a smaller associated change in impervious area than someplace like Aurora. And if the article was actually concerned about decreasing green space, that kind of analysis would likely show that densification preserves more green space than it destroys.

But really this written for people to yell about development and for the people that think that limiting growth is going to magically prevent people from moving here. The people that don't understand how housing prices relate to density and demand, and wrap their complaints with a layer of "environmentalism" that isn't actually concerned with any environment other than their own.

And the fact that the article features an anti-Hancock button shows how ignorant these people are of what is actually driving and causing the issues they're concerned with - suburban places like Aurora are gobbling up so much more green space than Denver and deposing Hancock won't do a damn thing about it. Stopping high rise construction downtown isn't going to magically prevent those people from moving here, they'll just buy single family homes and destroy more green space.

I'm actually most surprised that the city and/or the development community doesn't have a better counter-argument to this kind of junk. I mean just a simple "Oh, you're concerned about the environment? So are we, that's why we want as many people to live near downtown and on transit as possible, so we preserve the forests and prairies that surround us. Maybe if more people could walk to work and commute without cars we would have less pollution. It's cheaper to live and we're building to exceed demand etc. etc. etc." Instead there is always talk about what is allowed through zoning and visions for the future and some talk about policy change, but never an attempt to sell urbanization as a part of the solution. I guess that probably indicates that no one actually believes that densification is better...

[RyanD]

To give you guys a good perspective of where Bell Tower is potentially going, here's an aerial we posted on DenverInfill today. The lot is in the middle-right of this photo with 1401/1144/4S behind it.

https://denverinfill.com/blog/2019/01/new-project-bell-park-residences-office.html

[twister244]

Originally Posted by InfillJunkie

Any thoughts on this — anti development article from the Denver Post?

As development eats away at Denver’s green space, the “city within a park” is becoming a concrete metropolis

Bruce Finley
January 13, 2019 at 6:00 am

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/01/13/denver-green-space-urban-density/

God I get sick of hearing this —. This is the same attitude that lead to Boulder becoming what it is today.... a gated community only for those who can afford a 1$ million houses or be a college student at CU. I love how these folks wrap their whole NIMBY attitude with an environmental bow pretending to care about the environment. These folks also don't realize the unintended actions that occur when you begin to place caps in place for development. Take Boulder for example. They could easily adopt progressive smart growth policies that would preserve the green space around town, while creating a dense urban core in a college town. That would be pretty cool actually, and make Boulder a unique city in the nation. But..... no...... so what do we get? Thousands of folks that work in Boulder, but live elsewhere, pouring in during morning rush hour, and out during the evening, polluting the air with their cars. Good job Boulder! The last thing I want is that to occur to Denver. Folks will move elsewhere in the metro, leading to a sunbelt sprawl model like what you see in Phoenix. No thanks......

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by twister244

God I get sick of hearing this —. This is the same attitude that lead to Boulder becoming what it is today.... a gated community only for those who can afford a 1$ million houses or be a college student at CU. I love how these folks wrap their whole NIMBY attitude with an environmental bow pretending to care about the environment. These folks also don't realize the unintended actions that occur when you begin to place caps in place for development. Take Boulder for example. They could easily adopt progressive smart growth policies that would preserve the green space around town, while creating a dense urban core in a college town. That would be pretty cool actually, and make Boulder a unique city in the nation. But..... no...... so what do we get? Thousands of folks that work in Boulder, but live elsewhere, pouring in during morning rush hour, and out during the evening, polluting the air with their cars. Good job Boulder! The last thing I want is that to occur to Denver. Folks will move elsewhere in the metro, leading to a sunbelt sprawl model like what you see in Phoenix. No thanks......

I totally agree. I read part of this article and was wondering what green space they're talking about. No parks have been paved over. The only green space being "paved over" is on the outskirts of the metro area. I live in Denver and my impression is that we have a decent parks system.

And the beginning of the article is a complete joke. Really? Living in a city doesn't offer peace, quite and views of wilderness? Sounds like an idiot who needs to move out of the city!

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by InfillJunkie

Any thoughts on this — anti development article from the Denver Post?

As development eats away at Denver’s green space, the “city within a park” is becoming a concrete metropolis

Bruce Finley
January 13, 2019 at 6:00 am

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/01/13/denver-green-space-urban-density/

This article is so misleading. It says:

Excluding the undeveloped area around the airport, nearly half the land in Denver’s city limits is now paved or built over — up from less than 20 percent in the mid-1970s.


This may be true (not sure of the source), but the impression being given is that what was once lovely "green space" that residents previously had access to, and was part of their amazing lifestyle that made Denver so livable, has now been "paved over" or "built over."

But isn't this decrease in undeveloped land largely a function of the massive spaces that became available for re-development from (a) Stapleton; (b) Lowery; and (c) the Central Platte Valley/RiNo?

All of those areas contained large amounts of "undeveloped land" (thank god, for Denver), that has now largely been developed. But this wasn't "green space" that citizens had access to, this was "an airport", a "military base", and "abandoned rail yards/industrial lands" (to the southwest, west, and northwest of downtown).

Of those three, none of them presented actually accessible "green space" to the general public. Hell, I used to regularly ride my mountain bike in the abandoned industrial lands that now constitute Elitch's, the Pepsi Center, Union Station, River Front and Ballpark, and would largely have the entire massive acreage to myself (and a few homeless people camping along river) on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

Other than lovers of industrial waste land like myself, this was not "green space" used by the public. The developed space today represents a HUGE increase in actually usable "green space" in those areas (Elitch's, Riverfront Park) than what was there in the 1970s. Ditto for the developed lands that constitute Lowery and Stapleton.

What a croc.

[mr1138]

The flaws in that article are almost too numerous to count, but what the heck - I'll dive in.

CherryCreek, I think you hit the nail on the head that the main problem is the use of the term "green space." That phrase is so euphemistic that, without defining exactly what it means, it can be interpreted in many different ways by different people.

I also wasn't entirely clear where that "20% additional pavement" statistic comes from, but I think everybody is right that it probably comes from the development of Stapleton and Lowry. But the way the article is worded, you could easily see how a casual reader could interpret it to mean that all of the new infill downtown is replacing "green space." How many people, besides us urban enthusiasts, accurately remember that most infill sites were paved parking lots prior to development? I can easily imagine the casual citizen remembering the past with rose colored glasses, and articles like this will only reinforce and validate those inaccurate memories.

Another possible interpretation of the author's "green space" would be in reference to the bluegrass yards and trees that go along with single-family homes. The construction of slothomes and other higher-density forms does indeed result in more impervious surface. It certainly seems that the author is suggesting that the "city in a park" refers to the tree-canopied appearance of single family neighborhoods. But without a deeper discussion of the inherent sustainability and social justice of different kinds of urban forms, this is merely an incredibly shallow aesthetic judgement. It also seems to be an abuse of a term that originates from the City Beautiful to not acknowledge that Mayor Speer and other advocates of City Beautiful were mostly talking about monumental public parks and open spaces, and were by no means against a dense urban form.

The article is so woefully unspecific in its language that it feels more like a bunch of NIMBY dog-whistles than anything else. I get the distinct sense that "green space" is talking about more than just public park space though.

If the author wanted to spark a real conversation about the merits of density, "green space," and parkland, then it might have been smart to at least acknowledge and respond to the pro-environment urbanist arguments in favor of density that are embedded in planning documents like Blueprint Denver and the current zoning code. And if we want to talk about strategies to create new public parkland, then that is a valid conversation I think even many urbanists would be willing to engage in. But this article simply peddles in shallow stereotypes and unexamined biases.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by mr1138

The flaws in that article are almost too numerous to count, but what the heck - I'll dive in.

The article does do one great service- its shows what a one-sided program CU's Program in Environmental Design is and how it captures the Boulder ethos perfectly. Ken, perhaps you can —-slap your colleagues up there with some urban design enlightenment?

CherryCreek, I think you hit the nail on the head that the main problem is the use of the term "green space." That phrase is so euphemistic that, without defining exactly what it means, it can be interpreted in many different ways by different people.

I also wasn't entirely clear where that "20% additional pavement" statistic comes from, but I think everybody is right that it probably comes from the development of Stapleton and Lowry. But the way the article is worded, you could easily see how a casual reader could interpret it to mean that all of the new infill downtown is replacing "green space." How many people, besides us urban enthusiasts, accurately remember that most infill sites were paved parking lots prior to development? I can easily imagine the casual citizen remembering the past with rose colored glasses, and articles like this will only reinforce and validate those inaccurate memories.

Agreed. "Green space" in this article certainly seems to be defined as any kind of non-built space in Denver, which is insanely deceptive as most people are going to think of parks, greenbelts, etc. instead of , for example, the buffer zone surrounding a runway. That's a huge distinction. There's no mention in the article of the increased amount of actual dedicated open space, that cannot be developed, that has been secured in the Denver Metro area over the last thirty years such as the two gigantic wildlife refuges at the Arsenal and at Rocky Mountain Flats. Nor is the extensive, interconnected park system that has been built in Stapleton mentioned. That kind of omission, in contrast to the comment that no 100-acre park has been designated in Denver over the last 20 years, is glaring and, again, deceptive.