Building Denver one 2×4 at a time. The skyline of Denver rises from a new construction project along Boulder Street in the LoHi neighborhood on July 12, 2012. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
Re: “Letap reset density debate,” July 12 Vincent Carroll column.
Vincent Carroll’s column on the density of cities was much about the people per square mile in Denver vs. that in Los Angeles. The debate should not be focused on these numbers but on the issues of the growth of Denver.
Some predict that our population of 663,862 in Denver proper will double by mid-century. Where and how will we house these people? Should we continue to spread thinly at the edges and overcrowd the core, or should we all make room for others within our neighborhoods? There is space within most neighborhoods, but not for projects of hundreds. If every block were to create a plan to add only 25 percent more living units over the next 50 years, that would go a long way to controlling growth. The added living units could include smaller houses, duplexes, accessory dwellings, interior apartments and other forms of living, even affordable homes.
Mike Kephart, Denver
This letter was published in the July 19 edition.Vincent Carroll’s column misses parts of the concept and reality of so-called urban density. First, “density” is far from an absolute, and its definition depends upon the area measured. Average density means little, for if you have one foot in ice water and one in boiling water, on average you may feel OK.
Dispersal is a much more serviceable idea here. Its blind application by developers uninterested in reworking infrastructure has proven very expensive. Not only are vast tracts of prime farmland lost to urban dispersal each year, but the cost to serve dispersed housing always exceeds the tax revenue it generates.
“Density,” per se, deceives. It is the effects of density that should remain in focus, the externalities generally opposed by neighbors. The biggest of these is vehicular traffic. Households today seem to require more than one vehicle per person. There is the real bugaboo.
Gregory Iwan, Longmont
This letter was published in the July 19 edition.
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