Lessons from Denver

One went to Denver and the other went wrong

— American folk ballad.

Last fall, we took the train from Seattle to my favorite adopted hometown, Denver. This form of travel is worth the trip — vacation begins when you settle into your seat. Arriving in Denver, I found the city much changed from when I lived here in the 1990s, working for the Rocky Mountain News, and all for the better. Getting off the California Zephyr, the restored Union Station greeted us. Not only is it the hub for Amtrak, but also for the light- and heavy-rail trains on the 122-mile network funded by the 2004 FasTracks referendum. Light rail preceded FasTracks, with the first line from downtown to suburban Littleton opening in 1994. As in Dallas, once people saw how light rail worked, everybody wanted it. Now an electric-powered commuter line also connects to Denver International Airport, along with six light-rail lines and more coming.

Union Station, which recently underwent a $200 million renovation, is breathtaking. The exterior, with its iconic "Travel by Train" neon sign, is cleaned up and the center of vast amounts of mixed-use development. Inside, the once grimy waiting room, has been opened up into a wifi-equipped common area surrounded by shops and restaurants. We stayed at the Crawford Hotel in the station, named after the pioneering downtown developer Dana Crawford. It's a miraculous makeover from when I was among a small number of downtown residents and I would ride my bicycle around the deserted railyard behind the depot. Union Station is the anchor of Lower Downtown, or LoDo, where imposing warehouses from the 19th and early 20th centuries were renovated into lofts, offices, and restaurants. An early brewpub was started here by John Hickenlooper, who went on to become Denver mayor and Colorado governor.

It was a near-run thing. Although preservationists led by Crawford scored a win by saving Larimer Square in the 1960s as a tourist destination, many people were prepared to tear down the majestic but obsolete warehouses of LoDo. Only thanks to mayors Federico "Imagine a Great City" Peña and Wellington Webb, along with developers such as Crawford who had the skills to save and rehabilitate old buildings, was LoDo saved. Railyards made redundant by mergers were turned into a campus for Metropolitan State University, the Community College of Denver and the University of Colorado at Denver. LoDo and nearby areas also attracted Coors Field of the Colorado Rockies and the Pepsi Center where the NBA Denver Nuggets and NHL Colorado Avalanche play. What was mostly abandoned railroad property when I first arrived has been completely rebuilt and knitted into the city.

It's no surprise that Denver is among the 20 finalist cities for Amazon's HQ2, with 50,000 high-paid jobs and $5 billion investment. Denver is a comer, win or lose.

 

People constantly lecture me that every city changes, and I shouldn't be so hard on a changed Phoenix. The trouble with this booster posturing is that every other big city in which I've lived has mostly changed for the better (affordability and inequality are usually even worse in loser cities). This is certainly the case with Denver. But Phoenix has mostly changed for the worse, with the stubborn Resistance trying to prevent further harm and create some good things.

What can Phoenix learn from Denver? The local-yokels won't learn anything because...sunshine! But let me offer a few observations for the urban junkies that populate this blog:

1 History. Denver was a big city (nearly 107,000 in 1890) when Phoenix was a struggling farm town (3,100). The Queen City of the Plains, as it was known before the twee Mile High City monicker, was the distribution point for the rich mining country of the Colorado Rockies. It became a major railroad center, hosting six Class I railroads at its zenith. It attracted all manner of industry, too, as well as moving cattle and wheat from eastern Colorado. Denver became a significant corporate city, from headquarters of Mountain Bell and major banks to the brokerages lining Seventeenth Street — "the Wall Street of the West." All of this allowed Denver to become the No. 1 city of the Intermountain West. It never surrendered this crown even as Phoenix became far more populous. To be sure, history can be a curse for older cities (think Buffalo or Detroit). "New cities" should have an edge, as is the case with Los Angeles. But Denver's history mostly worked to its advantage.

2. Good bones. Because it was a real city during the best decades of American architecture, Denver is blessed with an amazing variety of great buildings, lovely city neighborhoods, lush parks, and walkability. You see this from the Brown Palace Hotel and the sweeping civic space between City Hall and the gold-domed State Capitol, to neighborhoods such as Cheesman Park and Country Club (Mamie Eisenhower's home). And they didn't tear most it down. This, along with some of the other points in this list, positioned Denver perfectly to benefit from the "back to the city" movement of young talent and companies.

3. Landlocked. The 1974 Poundstone Amendment, which prevented further annexation, was meant to kill Denver and enhance the power of the suburbs. Instead, it saved Denver from the costly and zero-sum annexation battles that have so wounded Phoenix. Denver had to work with the land area it had (156 square miles). To be sure, it faced flight to suburbs by both people and companies. But it never tipped into weakness, never lost most of its assets. The Front Range has been profaned by sprawl from Colorado Springs to north of Denver — it's a mess, except where it's connected by light rail. The idea of moving "out to a small town" is absurd. As commutes lengthened and suburban pathologies grew, the appeal of the authentic city only grows. Denver leaders also successfully built regional consensus for such things as FasTracks and the new airport  

4. Smart people, moneyed civic stewards. Nobody moves to Denver to retire or for championship golf. In one survey, Denver ranked No. 16 among the "smartest cities in America" (Phoenix 61). Nearly 46 percent of Denver's adults have a bachelor's degree or higher (27 percent for Phoenix). They bring a deep environmental ethic. Denver has deep wells of entrepreneurship. Like Seattle, it's always been a city on the make. In addition, its wealth was not sequestered in a Scottsdale. Many wealthy civic stewards can write checks and knock heads to keep improving the city. One example was saving a decrepit shopping center (think Park Central) and turning it into the Cherry Creek Shopping District. Another was turning the vacant rail yards into a downtown higher-education center that makes ASU in downtown Phoenix look like a baby.

5. Purple state. Some of the biggest reactionaries in the nation can be found in Colorado Springs, home to Focus on the Family among other right-wing flagships. But enough of the state is sane that Colorado doesn't tip into the impossible deep red of Arizona. The governor is a Democrat. The General Assembly is split and competitive. This is the state of Gary Hart and Tim Wirth, not Barry Goldwater. That's been good news for Denver, with fewer anti-city bills coming out of the legislature. It's allowed the city and county of Denver to have genuine local control.

6. The right federal assets. Arizona stole Colorado's water — at least that's how they see it — with the multi-billion-dollar reclamation projects that turned Phoenix first into an agricultural empire and then a huge metropolis. Denver got the second-largest concentration of federal employees outside of Washington, D.C. The result is smart people and decision-making agency offices, a huge economic driver.

7. Constant reinvention. Like Seattle, Denver has constantly remade itself. The mines played out and were replaced by powerful companies. The railroads merged but Denver International Airport is one of the largest in North America, with plenty of room to grow (sorry, no conspiracy). The old Stapleton airport was redeveloped into one of the most successful examples of new urbanism in the country. As crown jewels such as the US West headquarters and major banks were lost, Denver kept a strong corporate presence (for example, the former regional headquarters of JPMorgan Chase in Phoenix was consolidated in Denver), while developing a diverse technology economy. It was never dependent on real estate as the prime mover.

It's become a closet industry to talk about the sharp division between winner and loser cities. But the winners make their own luck, and have for decades.

 

 

Comments

[100 Octane]

And they have "Blucifer"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mustang.

Yes, Denver is a great place to be.

[soleri]

One reason Denver didn't deteriorate like other older cities was a vibrant urban neighborhood called Capitol Hill. It stretches from the state capitol to Cheesman Park on the east, Colfax down to 7th Avenue on the south. When I lived there back in the '70s, it was a mixed area with some gritty streets with a few others that were spectacularly beautiful. Though the decades since then, the gentrification has softened some of the rougher edges. The old '50s Safeway at 11th Avenue & Washington is now a Whole Foods, for example, while Colfax has fewer dive bars and more coffee houses.

Capitol Hill is little more than a square mile and the population is about 100,000. Because it's cheek by jowl with downtown, there were always people shopping and doing business there. Denver's urban tragedy is that it lost its major downtown department stores by 1980 when most of them decamped to the upscale Cherry Creek Mall three miles away. Downtown didn't die like Phoenix's but it became less vibrant. Today, it has plenty of tourists on its 16th Avenue mall, but it can't match its former glory, at least in terms of busy sidewalks.

Today, Denver is hot with a downtown housing boom, particularly in the Central Platte Valley (the former rail yards just north of Union Station). The metroplex is Colorado's economic engine but the sprawl is discouraging. I recall the beauty in driving from Denver to Colorado Spring back in the day. Now the area is like an upscale Prescott Valley. The sprawl also follows I-70 westward into the Rockies and doesn't really give out until it reaches Glenwood Springs 170 miles away.

Denver's good fortune, as Rogue notes, is its deep architectural heritage. Like every other city in this country, it was profligate with its amazing heritage but enough remains to anchor Denver as a city with enough visual beauty to attract and even inspire people. The economic benefit here is incalculable. I notice the same dynamic in Portland which attracts tens of thousands of newcomers with its old buidlings and retail districts. Both cities are messy in the way Jane Jacobs noted successful cities usually are. Better messy than sterile! Phoenix is finding out the hard way that you can't power-wash away old buildings without making an urban renaissance that much harder.

Denver is blessed in one other significant way: the Rockies that loom over the city like a magnetic presence. It makes the climate salubrious, too. Winters are not monotonously cold nor are summers monotonously hot. People want to live there for obvious reasons and they're driving up prices now to near-nosebleed levels. Of course, every great place in this country is being bid up in value this way. Denver's good fortune was obvious at its birth and in its brash youth. It still is, for that matter.

[Yuval]

I would not hype Denver too much, it might be better than The Valley of the Sun but that’s not saying much. Still way too much land and resources devoted to freeways with more investment on roads (T-Rex) making mass transit less attractive. It is sprawl all the way to Boulder, public transit numbers I think have declined in recent years and I would say not as used as Link. Also not a lot of major corporations have been based or created there hence why the football stadium doesn’t have a sponsor.

The airport is too far away from city center IMO and the stadiums both football and basketball are far from downtown surrounded by parking making them not pleasant to walk to. I do like the art museum designed by Libeskind. Being a state capital for a big city is also a downer not to mention CO state gov’t does not provide great services. Lastly the MLS stadium was built in the burbs and has been a failure in Commerce City with low attendance.

Great information though, I would describe the city as a cross between Seattle and Phx.

[Diane D’Angelo]

I’ve now lived in Denver - a city that was never on my radar - for almost five years. Other than the high cost of living that makes it tough for nonprofit employees like me. I love it here. Jon articulates all the reasons why. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there is a “here, here.”

[HMLS]

I concur with with Yuval but empathize with Diane. After Phoenix, any real city is easy to love. Too much sprawl in Denver. Lack of enough bones and water. Portland rocks and Seattle is fabulous but unaffordable for us commoners.

[Rogue Columnist]

One of my points is that the exurban spaces of America, particularly those adjacent to metropolitan areas, are lost. Oregon and Washington have land-use boundaries, but they are rare and these rules are under constant attack.

So, of course the Front Range, especially along I-25, is a sprawl disaster. And even metro Denver has too many freeways. BUT...the city offers the livable alternative. One doesn't have to own a car. The city is human scale and full of options.

[soleri]

The ongoing auction in real-estate values rewards not merely good cities but better neighborhoods, pleasant micro-climates, adequate transit systems, and good bones. In short, everything is for sale and America's best places are now unaffordable for many if not most people.

This is true even in Phoenix. Trying buying a modest house in Willo or Windsor Square if you're average income. Developers will even leverage the cachet of rather marginal areas (see: Roosevelt Row) for their projects and in that process make those areas unaffordable for an ever-larger number of people, including the very people who made those areas special in the first place. Say, hipsters and artists.

The most frustrating thing to watch in a city like Phoenix is how developers play this game politically. They demand more outer loops and state land sales in order to enable their master-planned communities. In that process they worsen the very qualities of the city as a whole. Yet you can be sure they live in places that guarded against people like themselves. Santa Barbara, La Jolla, and Sedona come to mind.

Phoenix had assets that were squandered so real-estate sharpies could make big bucks for themselves. As late as 2000, there was a ballot proposition to curb this insanity. It was sponsored by the Sierra Club and was defeated once the TV ads told the rubes they'd lose their jobs if they dared vote for it.

I made my peace with Phoenix since moving to Portland. I pretty much understand now why it threw away a great possibility for sprawl and schlock. No one and no thing is better than "what is". If Phoenix was as magical a city as I once thought, its price points would have reflected that idea. What You See Is What You Get.

[DoggieCombover]

I lived in CO for 10 years in the '80's, on the west slope, but spent a lot of time in Denver due to work and a future wife who lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I characterized it at the time as "all of the disadvantages of a big city with few of the amenities." Traffic was awful, air quality worse and the biggest events in town were cowboy themed--rodeos, horse shows--it felt like an overgrown cowtown. The friends I still have there have mostly been driven out to the burbs and small towns embedded in the sprawl. I have also seen it snow 4 feet overnight, on top of 2 feet that fell in the previous couple of days, and seen it dramatically below zero in October, before the leaves had even fallen. I'm glad to hear there are some improvements, but you can't fix the air, traffic, and weather.

[DoggieCombover]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the universal complaint of all of the old friends: they don't go to the mountains anymore. If they are tied to a M-F work schedule, it's off the list as I-70 is virtually gridlocked every weekend.

[lizzy smith]

Doggie Combover, I've been in CO (mostly Aspen, but) Denver on & off since 1993. Never in my life have I witnessed below 0º weather in October, or 4 ft falling after 2 ft of snow. Usually, we get a dusting or 2 inches which is gone by the following afternoon. More likely, it's been 70º in December and February, followed by 50º, 60º… you get the picture. Global warming in full effect!

Also, to the above poster 100Octane, Whole Foods isn't even at 11th and Ogden (not Washington) any longer, as a flagship was built in LoDo in November 2017. Many older, rougher neighborhoods have been/are being revitalized and young folk are buying them up at ridiculous prices at a ridiculously fast rate. It is not only not unusual, but likely that if you find a home under $350k, the listing will likely not make it through the day before there are 10 or more offers significantly over asking price, and that is usually $25-35k more. It's crazy.

[Ex Phx Planner]

Point of emphasis on #3 and #7
#3 the Poundstone Amendment that limited Denver’s ability to annex. Couple points here:

Denver has a larger city budget (when comparing each city’s General Fund – the one that matters most for improving the city)

Phoenix spends over 70% of its budget on public safety. Denver? Less than 40%. Crime rates aren’t significantly different.

Denver spends its budget on an area 1/5 the size of Phoenix (Denver is really only about 100 sq. mi., the other 50 is DIA land.)

Phoenix’s huge infrastructure footprint is a massive disadvantage. Just take the example of 70% of the budget on public safety. Patrolling over 500 square miles takes a massive fire and police force, a huge fleet of vehicles, and hundreds of stations. The remaining 30% mostly goes to the perennial attempt at catching up on deferred maintenance of other infrastructure. Phoenix views a successful budget as one that doesn’t have to cut services. Enough said.

As far as #7, constant reinvention, Denver’s ability to envision and then execute huge transformative projects boils down to one thing: leadership. This isn’t because it has a bunch of influential corporate headquarters or its version of the old Phoenix 40 (it has neither) rather, it has a strong mayor form of government that allows the actual elected leader of the city to “knock heads and write checks”.

Denver mayors have generally made many more long term, strategic investment decisions compared to Phoenix city managers who make them mostly through political lenses. Because Phoenix’s city manager works for the Council, his job is to keep a majority of them happy. If he doesn’t, he gets fired. All major decisions are made through this lens. When combined with a 500+ square mile city, this means spreading limited resources very thinly across the city - not moving the needle much if at all.

Supporters of this system say that the city is “run professionally” and point to indicators like Phoenix’s bond rating. Here again, Denver has a higher bond rating and, more importantly, can actually use it. Because of better financial management, Denver actually issues a GO Bond every 10 years, the standard for successful cities, as GO Bonds fund the game-changing infrastructure that make cities great.

Phoenix’s last GO Bond was 2006 and another issuance will not happen anytime soon. Why? because Phoenix issued it at the height of inflated property values that have still not recovered. This is not bad luck. The fact that Phoenix was (and still is) over-exposed to real estate and crashed harder than every other city is a management failure, as is issuing a huge bond at the peak of a real estate bubble. In fact, a few months ago a study came out that listed Phoenix as second only to Chicago as having the worst debt to revenue ratio of an major city. http://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-its-time-for-bond-investors-to-remove-skeletons-from-their-portfolio-2017-10

Again, I don’t really see an upside for the Council/Manager system.

[Ex Phx Planner]

Forgot to add the biggest kicker to #3 above - Denver does all this with half the population as Phoenix and a lower overall tax rate.

[100 Octane]

Excellent points from Ex Phx Planner.

@lizzy smith that post was from soleri.

For anyone interested, this thread shows some of what Denver lost...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=207698

"I made my peace with Phoenix since moving..." My plan has long been to stay in Phoenix but am starting to feel it may not be worth the effort.

[Cal Lash]

Infrastructure and population growth of cities. Denver not on this chart?

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/cities-with-the-best-and-worst-infrastructure/

[S. Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the shoutout to my hometown Jon. Wonderfully written. Denver IS a beautiful city but not without its issues. As you know, historically, Denver has been a "boom or bust" town. When times are good, Denver rides the gravy train, offers incentives to developers like a cheap date, then learns her dream mate is only in it for the money. I fear our city hasn't learned that too much of a good thing can turn irreversibly sour. One of your commenters mentioned the destruction of the department stores on the 16th street mall, and of course, lest we forget, the ignoble and completely needless burial of Elitch Gardens. Basically, the cautionary mantra should be "Remember the 80s!" While conscientious development improves a city, the commercial developers and City Planners never seem to know when to stop! For example, Downtown, LoDo, RiNo, and other urban neighborhoods are indeed vibrant at the moment, but the sheer number of developer-driven, over-priced, soulless, cheaply-made, new construction apartments (aka "Millennial Kennels") is ridiculous. The affordable housing, multigenerational neighborhoods, and multicultural communities that used to exist in these neighborhoods are rapidly being destroyed, paved over, and gentrified into oblivion. Many of the beautiful, diverse, architecturally interesting neighborhoods we love are threatened every day by the mass hysteria of transitory, short-term occupancy development. (Refer to the documentary "San Francisco 2.0" for an excellent example.) Don't even get me started on 'The Slurbs,' (a brilliant and apt descriptor I learned from you, my dear friend.) It's astonishing and heartbreaking. Personally, I hope Amazon does not choose Denver. It would be the death knell for the remaining charm and diversity that is precariously holding on in our fair city.

[Ken Thomas]

Another insightful article Jon. Like you, I miss the Phoenix that existed in my youth and the potential it had. I finally threw in the towel and left Central Arizona in my late 50's, when it became obvious the trends would never change in my remaining lifetime. I find the Seattle area to be more to my liking, and feel Portland and Denver are fine alternatives as well. None are perfect, but the urban character is vibrant, human-scale and forward-focused, unlike the sprawling sameness and developer-focused Phoenix.

[Rogue Columnist]

The latest for downtown:

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/02/20/six-fifty-17-denver-tallest-skyscraper/