Lifestyle Differences in Denver Burbs? (Colorado Springs, Arvada: houses, living, costs)

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by tfox

Interesting post, vegaspilgrim. You probably know Aurora better than any of us. I've lived in a number of places in Colorado, but honestly Aurora is one place I've never lived in.

From an outsider's perspective, Aurora seems to me to be more a amalgamation of suburban areas than a single "place". In fact, much of the older parts of Aurora inside of I-225 seem to have more in common with neighboring parts of Denver than they do with much of the rest of Aurora. And in far southeast Aurora, it's built to service DTC commuters, much like Eastern Centennial or Parker, and the residents likely feel more connected to the other south metro suburbs than to Denver or even North Aurora.

As for going to the mountains more or less often, part of that likely has to do with cost. Aurora has a lot of families on a budget, and so playing in the mountains every weekend may be out of their budgets. Many of my international co-workers from India, East Asia, or the Middle East live in Aurora. Most of them aren't all that big into mountain recreation. Why did they choose Aurora? Several reasons. First, they could buy or rent more for their money. Second, there were lots of people from their respective countries already there. Third, ethnic markets, restaurants, and places of worship (i.e., the mosque) were in Aurora, so they can get their needs met close to home. They care about that kind of stuff far more than being close to the mountains.

I've often thought that of all the metro area communities, no two cites are as tightly intertwined as Denver and Aurora, so much so that one wonders why the two cities don't merge into one large city (Denver-Aurora or something like that). Seems like a win/win -- Denver is the 800 lb gorilla with the lion's share of the resources, but with nowhere to grow -- Aurora has all kinds of room to grow. It definitely won't happen -- the Poundstone Amendment was passed in the 1970s to essentially make it impossible for Denver to change its boundaries, plus there's no way parents in Cherry Creek School District are going to let Denver Public Schools take over their district. Nevertheless, it's interesting to think about. Even though unification is never happening, Denver and Aurora leadership should be thinking of themselves as one city rather than two when making decisions.

As for whether Aurora is "mid-western" -- well, I don't know exactly, since I've spent very little time in the mid-west, and don't pretend to understand it. However, Denver doesn't resemble any midwestern city that I can think of, but reminds a lot of other western cities in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, etc (just much larger). Aurora fits in pretty closely as an extension of Denver, from what I can tell. Every city has its working class suburb, and for Denver, that's Aurora.

Great analysis, tfox, as usual. Unfortunately I'm maxed out of rep points to give, as usual. Believe it or not, there are a lot of residents of Aurora (Aurorans?) who very much are into Aurora civic pride. Aurora has a pretty decent library system with a great Central library, an award winning parks and recreation system with activities for kids (and seniors too), a decent system of public swimming pools, and all kinds of cultural activities and events. Aurora does have a reputation for having higher crime, but the police department is very good. I think a lot of people in the Denver area are jealous of Aurora because they have their own water supply (with great tasting water, btw) and reservoir east of town. On the other hand, there are some people in Aurora and now Centennial who detest Aurora and want to have nothing to do with it. One of the biggest reasons why the eastern half of Centennial is part of Centennial, is because residents there did not want to have an Aurora mailing address anymore, even though they are surrounded on 3 sides by Aurora. It sounds petty, but I'm dead serious.

Aurora has a history of pandering to whatever developer comes their way, permitting an awful lot of cheap, tacky, development, and development in substandard land that should never have been built on (the shopping center going up on the SW corner of Parker & Arapahoe Rd is a good example-- building in a floodplain. And then there's the Murphy Creek golf course community, right next door to the Lowry Superfund site. ) When you drive up and down Buckley Rd, the city looks awfully drab and ugly at times, with rotting "fence canyons" backing the street, and street medians resembling ash-cans with ugly, dinky landscaping. So there is indeed a lot to criticize Aurora on. I personally have no desire to go north of Illiff Rd with the exception of the central library. I do not feel safe around the Aurora mall area, even with their supposed renovations. And with the new southlands development, I have no need to go to the Big Box stores north of Alameda, north of the Aurora mall. South/southeast Aurora I'm comfortable with, since that's my "stomping grounds." Increasingly, one of my favorite parts of the whole metro area is the Parker Rd/ Leetsdale corridor, a large part of which is in Aurora. There is tremendous ethnic diversity in that area (translation-- good food) and a lot of interesting hole in the wall kind of places, often in ugly strip malls. Ever been to the Emerald Isle? It's a bar by Parker/Quincy with a patio overlooking Cherry Creek dam. It's been there for years-- before I was even born. Aurora is not all cookie cutter and chains as some people claim.

The city I can think of that most compares to Aurora is Mesa, AZ-- the largest suburb of Phoenix. Like Aurora, it goes one for miles and miles from one end to the other (in the case of Mesa, west to east), with one end being an older, low-income, predominantly non-English speaking area (once you get out of the immediate Mormon-influenced downtown area) and the other end being practically all-white suburbia USA (East Mesa). In any case, I agree with you, Aurora and Denver should be one big city. Originally, Denver was part of Arapahoe County (Colorado's first county); the decision back in the day to split off Denver to form its own county was pretty dumb. Many old cities (St Louis, for example) also made that same mistake, ending up with a small core city surrounded by antagonistic suburbs. Fortunately, in Denver's case, the core city is back in full swing.

[steveco.]

Why would you say that creating a county and city entity in one was a bad thing?

[tfox]

Originally Posted by steveco.

Why would you say that creating a county and city entity in one was a bad thing?

Well, it was fairly neutral in and of itself, but it facilitated the Poundstone Amendment, which was passed primarily to stop Denver from annexing land while allowing all the suburbs to annex with no difficulty. This has had the effect now in which only about 20% of metro residents actually live in Denver. The text of the amendment reads that no county can annex land from another county without the approval of a majority of voters on the election ballot in BOTH counties. (Prior to this, Denver could annex unincorporated land just like any other city). The Amendment doesn't apply to normal cities, like Aurora, which now spreads across three separate counties. The only time Denver has annexed land since the Poundstone Amendment was the creation of DIA from Adams County, and that only after making huge promises to Adams County in exchange for their support.

[tfox]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

Increasingly, one of my favorite parts of the whole metro area is the Parker Rd/ Leetsdale corridor, a large part of which is in Aurora. There is tremendous ethnic diversity in that area (translation-- good food) and a lot of interesting hole in the wall kind of places, often in ugly strip malls. Ever been to the Emerald Isle? It's a bar by Parker/Quincy with a patio overlooking Cherry Creek dam. It's been there for years-- before I was even born. Aurora is not all cookie cutter and chains as some people claim.

I agree, vegaspilgrim. Parker/Leetsdale is one of Metro Denver's most interesting streets. It's full of ethnic markets and restaurants focused mainly on the immigrant community, which makes it great when you get a hankering for kimchee or masala dosas.

[steveco.]

Originally Posted by tfox

Well, it was fairly neutral in and of itself, but it facilitated the Poundstone Amendment, which was passed primarily to stop Denver from annexing land while allowing all the suburbs to annex with no difficulty. This has had the effect now in which only about 20% of metro residents actually live in Denver. The text of the amendment reads that no county can annex land from another county without the approval of a majority of voters on the election ballot in BOTH counties. (Prior to this, Denver could annex unincorporated land just like any other city). The Amendment doesn't apply to normal cities, like Aurora, which now spreads across three separate counties. The only time Denver has annexed land since the Poundstone Amendment was the creation of DIA from Adams County, and that only after making huge promises to Adams County in exchange for their support.

I actually don't see how this is a problem. So the city can't gobble up lakewood and aurora etc. since its acutally surounded by the suburbs there isn't any unincorporated land immediately adjacent to the city's boundries. It actually helps to create smarter development in the city since its getting pretty close to full buildout. Look at San Francisco for example which has the same law. Its city proper population is in the area of 700,000 but the metro is around 7,000,000. Same goes for miami and salt lake city and boston

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by steveco.

I actually don't see how this is a problem. So the city can't gobble up lakewood and aurora etc. since its acutally surounded by the suburbs there isn't any unincorporated land immediately adjacent to the city's boundries. It actually helps to create smarter development in the city since its getting pretty close to full buildout. Look at San Francisco for example which has the same law. Its city proper population is in the area of 700,000 but the metro is around 7,000,000. Same goes for miami and salt lake city and boston

I agree that it helps smarter development and that is why we see some of beautiful infilled projects in the city.

I would like to make a correction and say that there is much unincorporated land immediately adjacent to the city boundaries.

A large area would be southwest unincorporated Adams County northwest of the city and south of Westminster and east and northeast of Arvada. In addition there are big areas north of the city into south unincorporated Adams county. Many of these areas are industrial with vestiges of small farms which was prevalent in this area.

Some of these areas are residential; adjoining the Regis, Berkeley and Chaffee Park neighborhoods. This is the one of the unfortunate results of not acquiring land because these areas would have benefited from city inclusion. I would also say that if they city was allowed to acquire land north on Federal, past 52nd, that would have benefited these blighted areas, certainly with stronger zoning to keep the "sex trade" business out of the area.

Another areas of unicorporated areas just on the southwest border of the city, adjacent to the Marston neighborhood. These areas are unincorporated Jefferson County around the Columbine Valley. They have Littleton Addresses and some border parcels of Lakewood.

I believe there are some areas in unicorporated Arapahoe County that border the city to the south but I would have to do more research.

Of course, when Denver acquired land from Adams County for the airport--which became the city and county of Denver, that put huge parcels of unicorporated Adams county land on the city's northeast boundary. These areas would be beneficial for acquisition as they would eventually be supportive areas for the airport developement.

Though I agree that the restrictions on land annexation have been helpful, there are some situations where it has harmed the city and the state.

Livecontent

[tfox]

Originally Posted by steveco.

I actually don't see how this is a problem. So the city can't gobble up lakewood and aurora etc. since its acutally surounded by the suburbs there isn't any unincorporated land immediately adjacent to the city's boundries. It actually helps to create smarter development in the city since its getting pretty close to full buildout. Look at San Francisco for example which has the same law. Its city proper population is in the area of 700,000 but the metro is around 7,000,000. Same goes for miami and salt lake city and boston

I think you can argue that the Poundstone amendment HAS helped to foster a more urban environment in Denver in a critical period of the 1970s-1980s. So, in that sense it has a positive outcome. Cities with strong annexation powers, like Houston, have historically tended to lose sight of their urban fabric in attempts to expand. However, I think if Denver re-gained annexation today there's little risk of Denver losing focus. Likely, Denver's resources and vision could be the best thing that ever happened to the unincorporated areas directly to its north.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by tfox

Well, it was fairly neutral in and of itself, but it facilitated the Poundstone Amendment, which was passed primarily to stop Denver from annexing land while allowing all the suburbs to annex with no difficulty. This has had the effect now in which only about 20% of metro residents actually live in Denver. The text of the amendment reads that no county can annex land from another county without the approval of a majority of voters on the election ballot in BOTH counties. (Prior to this, Denver could annex unincorporated land just like any other city). The Amendment doesn't apply to normal cities, like Aurora, which now spreads across three separate counties. The only time Denver has annexed land since the Poundstone Amendment was the creation of DIA from Adams County, and that only after making huge promises to Adams County in exchange for their support.

The City and County of Denver was established in 1902. The Poundstone Amendment was passed in 1976, I beleive. I don't think the the former has any influence over the latter.

[tfox]

Originally Posted by Katiana

The City and County of Denver was established in 1902. The Poundstone Amendment was passed in 1976, I beleive. I don't think the the former has any influence over the latter.

As I explained, it does, but indirectly. The Poundstone Amendment never mentions Denver directly, but it was clearly written to affect Denver and only Denver. It does this since Denver was (then) the only consolidated city-county in Colorado. If Denver was not a consolidated-city-county, it would be have been much more difficult for Poundstone to single out Denver.

[Katiana]

Well, yes, I see what you mean. But I think it's kind of good that these other places are stand-alone cities.