Growth in the Denver-Metro area

It is good to see that there is finally a concerted effort towards developing downtown Denver as a true urban area. Colorado's growth, especially in the Denver/Metro region has been incredibly reckless over the past couple of decades. In a region that prides itself on wide open spaces and a positive relationship with the environment, it has always been sickening to see Denver grow out instead of up.

A quick drive down US-36 or south on I-25 reveals how short-sighted development has been. The landscape is choked with sprawling clusters of duplexes and single-family homes, retail areas and office parks. There are no decent mass-transit options (light-rail is just getting on its feet), and no centralized location for businesses to locate. People are coming from every direction to and from work and home. Instead of establishing downtown Denver as a centralized hub for business, developers set up shop at every point between Denver and the outlying communities. The result is that downtown remained dead, and there was no logical place to put mass-transit.

Finally, the city of Denver and responsible and innovative developers made the committment to establish downtown as the transportation, commercial, retail and residential hub of the region. The goal is to eventually see high-rise towers and dense development replace the weedy parkings downtown, and draw people in rather than build yet another cookie-cutter community or office park on the rolling plains and foothills leading to the mountains.

Downtown Denver is finally on its way towards being a vibrant urban community, a place where people can walk to work, dinner, a play and a ballgame, without ever getting in a car. The environmental, economic and aesthetic advantages of this are enormous.

The next steps are for a retailer such as Target or a grocery store such as Whole Foods to set up shop somewhere downtown to service the needs of the growing downtown population, and for something to be done to connect the large Auraria campus with downtown. Hopefully, someone will step up to the plate sooner rather than later.