Lack of high rise buildings downtown (Denver, Colorado Springs: home, neighborhood, college)

[BornintheSprings]

Lets face it the Colorado Springs downtown is pretty lame for city of nearly half a million people. A handful of tall buildings over a sea of low density sprawl. What could be done to increase density downtown and improve public transit so that the springs feels more like a city and less like a overgrown small town.

[StarrySkiesAbove]

Born and lived here my whole life. I live in a historic neighborhood near downtown. I like that our downtown feels like a small town and not a high density urban center. If I wanted high rises I would live in Denver.

[BornintheSprings]

I to have lived in the springs my whole life and I think its pathetic how neglected our downtown is. The reason this city has so many infrastructure problems is due to urban sprawl. Concentrate more people in the downtown location and make it more difficult to constantly build out. Building up is far more aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly.

[StarrySkiesAbove]

I think aesthetically pleasing is subjective. I personally find the small quaint old buildings to be more pleasing than modern high rises but again I am not looking to live in a large urban center, I already did that living in Tokyo Japan for a time in the 90's after college. It was fun and exciting in my 20's but I would find it exhausting now. I like my quiet, lame downtown.

[Josseppie]

I would agree. In my opinion the Springs has a tearable downtown for a city of its size.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by StarrySkiesAbove

Born and lived here my whole life. I live in a historic neighborhood near downtown. I like that our downtown feels like a small town and not a high density urban center. If I wanted high rises I would live in Denver.

Exactly. Rather than the usual hub & spoke layout with a dense city core we have a linear city that's strung out along the north-south arterials. It actually works quite well and it avoids the typical massive traffic flows into the dense core every morning and out again every afternoon. Offices and workplaces are located all along the I-25 / Academy / Union / Voyager Pkwy corridors allowing people to have a short commute from home to office.

[BornintheSprings]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Exactly. Rather than the usual hub & spoke layout with a dense city core we have a linear city that's strung out along the north-south arterials. It actually works quite well and it avoids the typical massive traffic flows into the dense core every morning and out again every afternoon. Offices and workplaces are located all along the I-25 / Academy / Union / Voyager Pkwy corridors allowing people to have a short commute from home to office.

Traffic wouldn't be such an issue if we actually had good public transportation that is on time and runs 24 hours a day. The insane car culture we have creates these low density suburban environments that in my opinion are incredibly ugly and unsustainable in the long run.

[otowi]

There's a reason Colorado Springs has the skyline it does - some conscious decisions by leaders in the past not to ruin the mountain skyline. Colorado Springs does not have high rises on purpose - they're uglier than our mountains.

[BornintheSprings]

Originally Posted by otowi

There's a reason Colorado Springs has the skyline it does - some conscious decisions by leaders in the past not to ruin the mountain skyline. Colorado Springs does not have high rises on purpose - they're uglier than our mountains.

I fail to see how having a few more tall buildings would ruin the mountain view. I suppose with that kind of backward thinking the springs will continue to be mediocre and lag behind other cities.

[otowi]

What is the benefit of a tall building? Just concentrating people and traffic? I just don't get the appeal, and I don't see it as a mediocre/lagging choice not to choose high rises which block views - if you don't think they do, go to Denver and walk around downtown see what you can actually see - unless you actually leave the downtown high rise area, you can't see squat except the ugly buildings. Denver's downtown is ugly, imho, and creepy. And other than marking it as a "BIG" city, I don't see that it does anything great. Not every city needs to be a "BIG" city to be a "good" city. Yes, we don't love sprawl, either - but that would be better controlled if more developers would redevelop lagging areas instead of constantly pushing out - like what they did around UCCS, etc.

I think , however, this topic has come up previously in these forums and it ends up just being a case of having to agree to disagree - pointless to debate, really, because there are just different opinions.

BTW, it is pretty presumptuous and rude to call other people's thinking 'backward' just because it is different from yours. Not everyone in the world things high rises are true progress.