It costs $17 a day to shelter a car in a parking garage in downtown Denver. New residential high-rises and four-star hotels with expensive condos on the top floors are under construction in the central city. Old warehouse buildings, mid-century modern office buildings and surface parking lots are being transformed into hotels for tourists and conventioneers, housing for wealthy post-boomers or 30-year-old trustafarian hipsters.
Something is happening. Is Denver growing up … or merely getting older?
Denver’s urban revitalization has yielded assets for the city: new neighborhoods, such as Lowry, Stapleton the Platte Valley and River North; well-designed civic and cultural buildings in the core; and the build-out of a comprehensive mass transit system.
On the other hand, there’s reason for concern:
The increasing gentrification of middle-class neighborhoods has been good for property values, but the loss of affordable housing stock combined with the disappearance of secure jobs with benefits does not bode well for urban centers in general and aspiring creative-class cities like Denver in particular.
Successful urban recovery has made cities expensive, too expensive for middle-class and fixed-wage workers. Political and civic leaders in emerging cities like Denver with relatively good physical infrastructure and minimal post-industrial economic dislocation (i.e., Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit) have focused on the creative elites as key to economic vitality.
That may be a myopic approach. Thirty-year-olds become forty-somethings and suddenly a house for the kid, the dog and the stuff in a neighborhood where the schools are good (and free) becomes more important than urban chic. Demographic inevitability, the consolidation of the corporate headquarters of major financial institutions, utility companies and retail operations, along with the steady migration of middle-class families and jobs to the suburbs, pose threats to the long-term viability of the center city.
Is there an antidote?
Any approach must begin with a renewed focus on attracting jobs and industries that contribute to a stable and thriving economy, diversifying the housing stock to recruit and retain middle-income households, a continuing focus on quality public education and regulatory policies, and public investment promoting job creation in urban locations poised for redevelopment.
Suburbia is and will continue to be the dominant form. With improved transportation alternatives, jobs will follow population migration and development of suburban transit centers will create opportunities for cheaper, denser employee housing and corporate office relocation.
There may not be an antidote to the gradual redefinition of the American city. As the state capital, Denver will continue to be the hub for government, the public and non-profit sectors plus regional recreational amenities. However, as the core becomes less welcoming to the middle class and families, the hip, the poor and the affluent will continue to dominate urban demographics, and quality private-sector jobs and a stable economic base may be more difficult to maintain.
As the elements of urbanism spread to suburbia – greater population diversity accompanied by more mixed-use office, high-tech and med-tech campuses – cultural amenities will become more vigorous. What might this predict for the future of the urban core?
As demographics shift, can Denver maintain a thriving economy and healthy institutional infrastructure? The answers may be elusive.
Susan Barnes-Gelt (bs13@qwest.net) served eight years on the Denver City Council and was an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. Her column appears on alternate Sundays.
