A Review of the Denver Metro Area (Boulder, Broomfield: unemployed, high school)

[steveindenver]

Yes, you're right. I remember some of the DC suburbs were "planned communities" though I can't for the life of me remember which ones. Maybe Columbia, MD and Reston, VA?

Reston is a post WWII planned community; a great model if you will for Highlands Ranch. 50 years later you have a decaying mess with the worst traffic in the nation. Interestingly you also have a slight revival in the Reston Town Center, a concept which has tried to add some ubranism to the area. Anyone anywhere who thinks they have been in bad traffic, including the 101 around Mountain View during the tech boom have no understanding. This entire suburban/exurban area is gridlocked every day for miles.

With more people moving to CO every day, we can't all live in an older home.

No but growth can be contained and managed in a responsible manner, Stapleton for example. There are plenty of reasons quite a few people have jumped on the bandwagon that exurbs are the future slums, this thread interestingly enough hits on almost all of those points in one way or another.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by steveco.

There are actually many employment centers scattered throughout the metro area. Boulder, Interlocken, Commerce city, Federal Center, Meridian, DTC, and the Downtown. Mainly having a centeralized employment center works best for ease of infrastructure and convenience of corporations. You can still live wherever you want and affordability isn't so much a factor of distance from places of work but rather ease of commute and ammenities close by. Florida is a mess of urban sprawl which is not a model to follow.

It also makes it easier to have good mass transit when your work centers are centralized. Having lived in the L.A. area for years, where there are many centers of business (downtowns and office parks) scattered throughout the region, it seem people rarely live near work and you just end up with gridlock in every direction.

If I found a new job in the Tech Center, I wouldn't move down there because I don't want to live there. But I honestly would avoid taking a job in the TC or Broomfield because I have no desire to sit in traffic.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by Movwest

My wife and I are currently looking at moving to Denver from the Kansas City area. She just had interviews and commented on how close the homes are together, the lack of a backyard, etc (we have 3 kids, a backyard would be nice but definitely not a deal breaker). Anyway, we have friends in the Denver area so are familiar with the traffic issues. With that in mind, it's being taken into account where we will live in relation to her (I work out of the home) job. She interviewed for a job in Englewood or what is roughly 5 minutes from Parker. We've dealt with the commuter traffic in KC (and realize it's minimal compared to other places) and decided we're not going to deal with that again.

Really, we're most interested in the amenities (ie mountains) that the area has to offer. I've sat in the Saturday morning ski commute as well and that was a real eye opener. However, I have talked to people who live in the area and when they do go ski, they're up and out by 6 a.m., have breakfast off the mountains, and covered what they've wanted to by 1:00. Traffic was never an issue for them.

Anyway, enjoy the site, there's a lot of good info here.

I grew up in KC with a huge sea of grass in the front and back yards. I think people overestimate how much of a yard kids need. The only person who ever walked all over that yard was me, when I mowed it out in the heat and humidity! Otherwise, it was just unused space.

We have a small back yard and no front lawn, other than grass between the sidewalk and street. I love it because it only takes 10 minutes to mow, and since you have to water your grass in Denver, it's not expensive to keep green. We have a park across the street, and other parks within a few blocks, so kids tend to play in the parks. People from KC freak out when they see our neighborhood with the houses 10' apart (or so), but it's all what you're used to. I wouldn't trade where I live for a huge suburban lawn for anything. We have plenty of privacy, but we also know all our neighbors well.

[Shonuff]

Lots of interesting responses.

Sorry to say this, but most of the people who trash Denver for these particular reasons, with the OP being a great example, plain don't belong in the Western US. You think neighborhoods in Denver have homes packed together tight? Ever been to Las Vegas-- off the strip-- in one of the newer developments on the edge of town there? In Vegas, they are building tiny three story homes, like these:

I don't know why a picture of row homes should illustrate how good denver housing areas are. Las Vegas has all different types of homes which I'm sure are very similar to what is out here. However there are tons of condos, row homes, duplexes, and other high density housing outside of the tightly packed single family homes. Your point about this being an aspect of the west is interesting because I've noticed that houses out here in Denver built from the early 1900's all the way up to the present had no yards and I can't understand this. Why if you are the only town for miles around with all the land you could ever want would you build houses right on top of each other?

[steveco.]

You see it has to do with land use and how it affected people 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 150 years ago etc. The car was not the most highly used mode of transit back when cities usually were first founded. Usually it would be in the form of horse drawn buggie or train or street car. Hence the dense housing you see in historic areas around the city. I can go into detail if you want but most cities that are more than 100 years old usually have this same type of development pattern. Even worse are European cities. You'd be lucky to even find a yard in one of them

[denverian]

Originally Posted by Shonuff

Lots of interesting responses.



I don't know why a picture of row homes should illustrate how good denver housing areas are. Las Vegas has all different types of homes which I'm sure are very similar to what is out here. However there are tons of condos, row homes, duplexes, and other high density housing outside of the tightly packed single family homes. Your point about this being an aspect of the west is interesting because I've noticed that houses out here in Denver built from the early 1900's all the way up to the present had no yards and I can't understand this. Why if you are the only town for miles around with all the land you could ever want would you build houses right on top of each other?

I like having the houses close together where I live in Stapleton. It seems more cozy, charming, or something. Plus it's more walkable. Not everyone desires an acre to mow.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by Shonuff

I don't know why a picture of row homes should illustrate how good denver housing areas are. Las Vegas has all different types of homes which I'm sure are very similar to what is out here. However there are tons of condos, row homes, duplexes, and other high density housing outside of the tightly packed single family homes. Your point about this being an aspect of the west is interesting because I've noticed that houses out here in Denver built from the early 1900's all the way up to the present had no yards and I can't understand this. Why if you are the only town for miles around with all the land you could ever want would you build houses right on top of each other?

Like I said, this is a characteristic of almost every city in the western US, not just Denver. Western cities are typically surrounded by wide open wilderness stretching for hundreds of miles, once you are outside of the metro area, but are relatively packed in an "gridded out" inside the metro area. There are many reasons why this is the case: #1: water. While there is virtually infinite land to expand, there is only limited water, and it costs a lot of money to transport municipal water over large distances; it makes more sense for water to be concentrated. #2: land in most western "valley" cities (and many midwestern cities too) is divided into a 1x1 sq mile grid, with each parcel of land abutting the others perfectly and little or no open space in between. Denver actually has a relatively high amount of open space within the metro area, since it has a lot of wetlands, plains creeks, dams (Cherry Creek, Chatfield, etc) and other features. In Phoenix, there is NO open space other than desert mountain preserves, which are unbuildable anyway.

#3: Because population is relatively concentrated (compared to back east or the midwest) and western cities tend to be located in scenic locales with mountain views and exotic climates, land within western metropolitan areas tends to be very expensive per acre. Due to the laws of supply and demand, developers will try to get as much profit per tract of land as they possibly can-- whatever the market can support. In Las Vegas, as my picture shows, that means 3-story homes packed on a miniscule sliver of land (by the way, those are NOT rowhomes; they are separate, detatched single family homes, including a mini fenced-in backyard not big enough to swing your arms around without hitting a wall. And that picture was taken in the southwesternmost outskirts of the city-- Blue Diamond Rd, not anywhere near the center of action).

#4: Different regional tastes and styles. Many people actually prefer the relatively tightly packed neighborhoods you can find in the West. Eastern suburbs, in contrast to eastern cities, tend to have NO sidewalks, no amenities, tiny narrow roads, and inefficient political organization with thousands of mini "townships." Western suburbs, by contrast, are a lot closer in design to western cities. Suburbs like Aurora and Lakewood are pretty big cities in their own right, and places like Greenwood Village and Centennial are some of the biggest employment centers in the metro area. If Denver was built on a same land use pattern as suburbs back east, it would sprawl out all the way to Limon.

[steveco.]

Vegas that was good points that you brought up. I'd give some positive reps but it won't let me.

[Venusian_Artist]

I think his point is still valid, even if you want to harp on one sentence.

[Daniel_T]

wow. what a post!!! I really liked Denver when I came for visit. I thought the city was sorta diverse. It's not out there like here in Arizona but I saw people from all cultures walking around. I found Denver to be a nice big city that feels Laid back and homely. My kinda place. If your so unhappy in Denver, you should save up and move somewhere else. If I had the choice, i'd come up to Denver to go to school, but I was accepted somewhere else. Denver's an awesome place.