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Who has that much of a drinking problem that they can't go to a bar and not get drunk enough not to drive?
A lot of people, especially guys my age, unfortunately. At least they're being honest with themselves that drinking is a core part of their lifestyle and needs to be a key factor in determining where to live. Not that they still couldn't drive drunk anyway.
I want to make another point. When we talk of HR, for some reason we forget that HR is not all the same from one area to the next. It has different sorts of areas, some have more retail, some are near schools, some are near bus routes, some are more walkable and some are not. I mentioned Colorado and University as a area that appeals to me. There are areas that are different, like the South Broadway that goes into HR.
That is same situation in my city of Arvada. There are areas that have the similar characteristics of parts of HR which do not meet my needs of living and some areas that suite me just fine. It is same in all other cities with different areas that have different characteristics.
So why do we perceive HR as one homogeneous mass, instead of separate areas with some separate identities. Why do we not discuss the different areas of HR like we do different areas of say, Aurora.
I think it is mainly that HR is a development not a City. HR needs to stop being HR but the City of Highlands Ranch. It is about time it developed an identity with its own services. It is certainly big enough with a big population. It needs to try to define itself more with some unique neighborhood characteristics within a real City.
Livecontent
Good points. There are even some commercial office parks right in Highlands Ranch where a lot of people work. I visited a client there a while back who's office was just south of C-470 in between University & Broadway.
From an LA Times Article on Highlands Ranch:
Robert Bruegmann, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says criticism of Highlands Ranch must be put in historical context.
From ancient Rome on, he said, middle-class families have sought to escape the crowded, dirty inner city. Through the ages, the resulting sprawl has drawn derision from the urban elite.
As row houses sprouted on the outskirts of Victorian London, for instance, "the artistic and intellectual elite called them ugly little boxes, destroying the countryside, put up by greedy developers," Bruegmann said.
Today, those row houses are hailed as smart, even graceful urban design.
Best post of thread! I post on Urban Planning as well, and I think I'm going to repost this there.
Many people criticize Commerce City and Aurora but HR and all the surrounding cities cannot exist without them. Yet, Commerce City and Aurora can easily exist without HR.
Aurora, specifically, is a powerhouse of blue collar and white collar industry...
HR was never designed to be a blue collar destination, it's mostly home to very highly educated white collar folks. The community does not 'need' industry and associated pollution, crime, traffic, etc. to survive. I expect that more Ranchers work at Lockheed and DTC than in Aurora or CC. Aurora may not need HR, but Lockheed certainly needs the brain power provided by HR residents. I respectfully disagree that HR needs either of those cities, IMHO. What do Ranchers need them for? Jobs? Cultural opportunities? Shopping/restaurants? Entertainment? No to all of the above.
Aurora has blue collar economic development and the crime that goes along with it, that does not make it better or worse than any other place, just different (although certainly worse in terms of income, crime, and uneducated population.) But, that obviously works for many people, so why criticize it or HR or any other place?
HR was never intended as a destination for Denverites (or others, really), as it was intentionally designed to be a suburban community with a lot of open/green space. You don't have to like it, but criticizing it for not being an industrial, crime-ridden, drug filled armpit of Colorado baffles me. Arvada certainly isn't a destination either, there's nothing there to draw in those from outside of the community, and that's fine. I'm guessing Arvada meets the needs of those who live there, just as HR meets the needs of those who live there. Different needs/interests/etc. -- there's something and somewhere for everyone.
HR was never designed to be a blue collar destination, it's mostly home to very highly educated white collar folks. The community does not 'need' industry and associated pollution, crime, traffic, etc. to survive. I expect that more Ranchers work at Lockheed and DTC than in Aurora or CC. Aurora may not need HR, but Lockheed certainly needs the brain power provided by HR residents. I respectfully disagree that HR needs either of those cities, IMHO. What do Ranchers need them for? Jobs? Cultural opportunities? Shopping/restaurants? Entertainment? No to all of the above.
Aurora has blue collar economic development and the crime that goes along with it, that does not make it better or worse than any other place, just different (although certainly worse in terms of income, crime, and uneducated population.) But, that obviously works for many people, so why criticize it or HR or any other place?
HR was never intended as a destination for Denverites (or others, really), as it was intentionally designed to be a suburban community with a lot of open/green space. You don't have to like it, but criticizing it for not being an industrial, crime-ridden, drug filled armpit of Colorado baffles me. Arvada certainly isn't a destination either, there's nothing there to draw in those from outside of the community, and that's fine. I'm guessing Arvada meets the needs of those who live there, just as HR meets the needs of those who live there. Different needs/interests/etc. -- there's something and somewhere for everyone.
I do agree that all areas provide resources to the total ability to survive, from white collar to blue collar, to working with your brain or your hands.
However, you are running off statements and failing to understand my meanings which is an overall metro area needs essential heavy and light industries. If you cannot understand why, then you do not live in the modern age or can live in any age, where there is necessity of manufacturing from copper tools to gas powered vehicles to the computer, you are using.You disagree and say that HR does not need these cities--well, your car will stay in your garage--without any gasoline. You gas heated house will be very cold and dark without the generation and transmission of gas and electric power. Let us not forget, we would not be having this discussion, over a distance. With respect, you are making me laugh.
I was not saying that the development of Highlands Ranch should have these industries, as it is mostly a bedroom community with some white collar office work. The City Arvada is also a bedroom community, but does have much more, with the added mix of some light industry because it an older area and more established, just like many of the cities around Denver that are not just developments. There is city zoning but there is also regional zoning and that is why you see very essential refineries in Commerce City and not in Highlands Ranch or Littleton or Arvada.
Your get so excited that you went beyond reasonable statements.You got so entangled with your ideas that you let underlying class arrogance show and overcome your intelligence. To say that crime is "associated" with industry or "goes along" with blue collar develoment is very wrong. To say that industry and drugs go together is an uneducated statement.
In addition, my point, in not criticize HR for what it is, then we should not criticize Aurora and Commerce City for what it necessarily contributes which some do often, and your statements in this post, shows that tendency.
I was also trying go beyond and state that there are cities, in this metro area, that are the main core essential enclaves. We do have white collar brain powered industries in Aurora, Denver and Commerce City and like residents do and can live there. However, cities like Arvada, other metro municipalities and more so developments like HR, do not have the expanse of essential industrial might to exist by themselves. That is like any area, and my statements are just a reflection on the makeup of this metro area.
Livecontent
Last edited by livecontent; 11-25-2011 at 09:57 AM..
Highlands Ranch is a very nice suburban community. I have friends that live there. Typically, the people who hate Highlands Ranch are one of two types of people:
1. Self righteous elitists who point their snouts in the air and criticize "the banality of the bourgeoisie" and their "cookie cutter" ways, while retiring back to their eco-friendly 9000 sqft mansion in Boulder bemoaning the vulgarity of McMansions all while congratulating themselves on their taste for uniqueness and the privilege of telling other people how they should live.
2. People who are still "rebelling" against their provincialism of their parents and disdain anything that reminds them of the protected equanimity of their childhood. Esstentially, they reject anything that reminds them of Daddy dearest. Think pierced, tattooed, postmodern anarchist. Your basic Occupy Wall street type.
Here is a good comparison for you. If cities were people, Highlands Ranch would be happy to be Highlands Ranch and would allow Boulder to be Boulder, However, Boulder seethes and fumes that Highlands Ranch exists and puts down Highlands Ranch all while reminding itself continually how smart, enlightened and most importantly better than Highlands Ranch it is.
Highlands Ranch is a great place for people who want to be happy, raise a family, in a nice, safe, clean environment.
I am one of those that have nothing close to a 9000 sqft mansion in Boulder (nor do I want one.) Nor do I qualify as "rebelling" against my parents' provincialism. I suppose that makes me "atypical." Let's also not forget that there are elitists on both sides. I've known plenty of people that try to impress me with their superior "McMansion" lifestyle in the suburbs, bemoaning my preference for city living as "dangerous" and even "reckless."
I think there is another type of person concerned about places like Highlands Ranch, and those are people that think we are all in this big boat together and that some ways of living contribute to chaos on the big boat, exacerbating larger problems.
The pro-sprawl crowd can persist in their notion that they are merely providing "what the people want", but as fringe "cities" edge further away from urban (and even suburban) cores, forever swallowing those plots of land with their luxurious views and fresh, new, friendly and quiet places to play, they inevitably become the surrounded, encircled suburbs where crime increases, emptying out to further flung nests that have taken on the traits their neighborhood used to possess.
Infrastructure costs more the further from the center of services one gets, the environment inevitably suffers and we're left with yet another neighborhood that is less desirable, more expensive, and virtually unremovable. In addition, that open space on the "edge of civilization" that allows people to feel they are living a a faux rural lifestyle has been consumed by the next fringe "city."
Now I don't fault anyone for looking for a better lifestyle for their family, and I certainly can't stop people from doing what they want...but I think it's important that people are aware of the grander consequences of their actions. In the larger scheme of things, those consequences will affect our region...all of us...and our children...well into the future.
It doesn't always have to be bad, being further out...particularly in communities that largely support themselves. They are often encroached upon by other cities that are less concerned about maintaining their identity and quality of life (and more concerned with increasing their tax base.)
But I personally see Highlands Ranch, Anthem, and similar unincorporated communities as being places where developers have sought to exploit every loophole in the book to not take responsibility for the larger social consequences of what they are creating. Much like the rise of easy credit in the 80s, it's created an environment that is, in the short term, cheaper and more accessible to lower and middle class people. Naturally, we flock to these places, either ignorant of the long term effects, or hoping that our impact will be minimal compared to our eventual goals.
OF COURSE they are pleasant, crime free places to live. That's the point. They are built on cheap land because it's far from infrastructure and often farm or grazing land that the owner is incapable of sustaining at a reasonable rate...i.e., it's become just desirable enough to send the price up and give that person a shot at making better money on the land.
But all this precludes any larger scope of social responsibility...the impact of the automobile (it's costs environmentally, as well as the shear volume of roads that need to be built, the impact of traffic and the dependence on foreign powers for their resources), the impact of being great distances from friends, family, and infrastructure such as water, power, culture, etc...
How many people on this forum would want to live in the Inland Empire of L.A., or somewhere in the Jersey 'Burbs? What about some far flung edge of Chicagoland? Most of them end up being very similar places, but they didn't START that way. They just got older. Meanwhile, developers built further and further out just to rake in a few more dollars without having to deal with any of the consequences.
Please don't mistake our disapproval of places like Highlands Ranch with a disdain or disapproval for YOU or your FAMILY. On the contrary. We are as concerned about the what the future holds for our children as you are. We are just asking that you consider the effects of what they are selling you over the longer term...as one day your children will grow up, and this is the world we will leave them.
It's not easy, and no, you won't always win. Sometimes that's the best circumstance you have, and you have to do what you believe is going to be best for your family at that point in your life. I only ask that if you must live in those places, then keep engaging...try to minimize your impact and make your communities better...don't just settle for whatever shopping centers and housing tracts have been built up around you, but try to make those suburbs places where your kids could live in the future, with culture and benefits that will stretch far into the future.
For my part, urban centers have been abandoned and ignored for far too long, and I prefer to see them revitalized instead...THAT is the main difference. Doesn't make me bad. Doesn't make you bad. Just means we may have a very different view on the future.
I am one of those that have nothing close to a 9000 sqft mansion in Boulder (nor do I want one.) Nor do I qualify as "rebelling" against my parents' provincialism. I suppose that makes me "atypical." Let's also not forget that there are elitists on both sides. I've known plenty of people that try to impress me with their superior "McMansion" lifestyle in the suburbs, bemoaning my preference for city living as "dangerous" and even "reckless."
I think there is another type of person concerned about places like Highlands Ranch, and those are people that think we are all in this big boat together and that some ways of living contribute to chaos on the big boat, exacerbating larger problems.
The pro-sprawl crowd can persist in their notion that they are merely providing "what the people want", but as fringe "cities" edge further away from urban (and even suburban) cores, forever swallowing those plots of land with their luxurious views and fresh, new, friendly and quiet places to play, they inevitably become the surrounded, encircled suburbs where crime increases, emptying out to further flung nests that have taken on the traits their neighborhood used to possess.
Infrastructure costs more the further from the center of services one gets, the environment inevitably suffers and we're left with yet another neighborhood that is less desirable, more expensive, and virtually unremovable. In addition, that open space on the "edge of civilization" that allows people to feel they are living a a faux rural lifestyle has been consumed by the next fringe "city."
Now I don't fault anyone for looking for a better lifestyle for their family, and I certainly can't stop people from doing what they want...but I think it's important that people are aware of the grander consequences of their actions. In the larger scheme of things, those consequences will affect our region...all of us...and our children...well into the future.
It doesn't always have to be bad, being further out...particularly in communities that largely support themselves. They are often encroached upon by other cities that are less concerned about maintaining their identity and quality of life (and more concerned with increasing their tax base.)
But I personally see Highlands Ranch, Anthem, and similar unincorporated communities as being places where developers have sought to exploit every loophole in the book to not take responsibility for the larger social consequences of what they are creating. Much like the rise of easy credit in the 80s, it's created an environment that is, in the short term, cheaper and more accessible to lower and middle class people. Naturally, we flock to these places, either ignorant of the long term effects, or hoping that our impact will be minimal compared to our eventual goals.
OF COURSE they are pleasant, crime free places to live. That's the point. They are built on cheap land because it's far from infrastructure and often farm or grazing land that the owner is incapable of sustaining at a reasonable rate...i.e., it's become just desirable enough to send the price up and give that person a shot at making better money on the land.
But all this precludes any larger scope of social responsibility...the impact of the automobile (it's costs environmentally, as well as the shear volume of roads that need to be built, the impact of traffic and the dependence on foreign powers for their resources), the impact of being great distances from friends, family, and infrastructure such as water, power, culture, etc...
How many people on this forum would want to live in the Inland Empire of L.A., or somewhere in the Jersey 'Burbs? What about some far flung edge of Chicagoland? Most of them end up being very similar places, but they didn't START that way. They just got older. Meanwhile, developers built further and further out just to rake in a few more dollars without having to deal with any of the consequences.
Please don't mistake our disapproval of places like Highlands Ranch with a disdain or disapproval for YOU or your FAMILY. On the contrary. We are as concerned about the what the future holds for our children as you are. We are just asking that you consider the effects of what they are selling you over the longer term...as one day your children will grow up, and this is the world we will leave them.
It's not easy, and no, you won't always win. Sometimes that's the best circumstance you have, and you have to do what you believe is going to be best for your family at that point in your life. I only ask that if you must live in those places, then keep engaging...try to minimize your impact and make your communities better...don't just settle for whatever shopping centers and housing tracts have been built up around you, but try to make those suburbs places where your kids could live in the future, with culture and benefits that will stretch far into the future.
For my part, urban centers have been abandoned and ignored for far too long, and I prefer to see them revitalized instead...THAT is the main difference. Doesn't make me bad. Doesn't make you bad. Just means we may have a very different view on the future.
Just what urban center in Denver has been abandoned?
Where do you think all 3 million of us should live within the Denver city limits?
Cut the "you're not a bad person", "I'm not a bad person" stuff. It seems to me that most people (not necessarily all) who tout that line really DO mean "My choices are better", especially when they talk about "urban sprawl", social repsonsibilty (the implication of which is that those of us who live in the burbs are socially irresponsible), "faux" rural lifestyle, when most of us in the burbs have lots not much larger than those in the city, certainly not big enough to keep a horse or cow. All of these certainly have negative connotations. And who's this "we", Kemosabe? Is there some "urban Denver" cabal here on this forum?
I'd really LOVE to live deep in the heart of Denver and walk to all the cool stuff, etc.
Several reasons why I do not:
- Costs too much, more than most can afford or are willing to pay.
- Noise; nothing like the roar of semi trucks or open-pipe Harleys echoing off concrete canyons, not to mention the sirens.
- Noise, again. Cheaply built housing stock with thin walls forces us to hear other people's lousy music choices, vulgar mouths, etc.
- SOME of our fellow humans SUCK. In various ways and/or at various times of the day/night they can be noisy, dirty, smelly, and trashy. People want to get AWAY from unpleasant people, and the suburbs allow relief from those very issues.
This is another argument that we've had before, that as soon as roads were paved to areas outside of our formerly teeming cities, people headed for the exits to get that fresh air, peace, quiet, safety, beauty and to escape the TB/disease infested mass of humanity that bred too much misery and crime in the prior generations, and still do to a smaller extent.
Many city areas are much nicer today as dangerous polluting firms have moved overseas or to modern plants in well-planned industrial parks in the ex-urban areas. There will be some movement back into cities as they gentrify, but I'm not moving next to any crude oil cracking or chemical plants, rendering plants, "adult" book stores, strip joints or steel mills.
Given price and all the other considerations, I'd pick HR, or many other suburbs, over LODO and many in-town areas.
When all things are considered, suburbs everywhere prove their attractiveness and will be with us forever. What remains is how well we zone them to be as self-contained as possible, not mere sterile bedroom communities for dense urban high-rise cores.
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 11-25-2011 at 12:29 PM..
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Let's also not forget that there are elitists on both sides. I've known plenty of people that try to impress me with their superior "McMansion" lifestyle in the suburbs, bemoaning my preference for city living as "dangerous" and even "reckless." 
Maybe not
