Thoughts on first Denver Visit

[LA21st]

I feel like its been a while since Denver was talked about here.
My first time in Denver and Colorado really, and I have to admire all the infill happening in the downtown/central area. Especially around Union Station, south Capitol Hill (?) and the 38th and Platte area (?). Sorry, I wasn't familiar with the neighborhood names yet.

TOD is everywhere it seems. They're doing a great job with that. The Union Station RTD bus and train connecions are quite nice and somewhat unique for America, as far as I know. At least for a city it's size.

Downtown itself is interesting, but I'm not quite sure what to make of it. 16th street mall is cool as is parts around Union Station and Lodo, but the more I explored the CBD, I don't know what's going on there. I recently read the office vacancy downtown is almost 40 percent? Still, the urbanity for its population is impressive. But kinda empty for all the midrises and highrises? I also didnt see any highrises uc, like over 25-30 floors. Everything was in the 10-15 range it seemed. Which is fine, but just a observation. But all the uc was like on the outskirts of downtown.

I liked the transit, impressive for a metro it's size and how the train lines intersect outside of downttown. Pretty rare for America. That said, the trains felt empty. Little shocking, and I wonder what the ridership is. Pedestrain activity didnt really stand out, but it wasn't bad either. The storefront vacancy thing seemed in line with everywhere else Ive been post covid. It's all the same shit.

After hearing the mountains aren't next to the city, I understand those comments now. I've watched yt videos of the distance but seeing it in person hit in a different way. They dont seem that accessible if you were gonna go after work or something. Weekends, sure. That said, there's other parks everywhere. But speaking of that, I didn't see the "crazy active" resident thing like social media says. I didn't see a difference between Denver and LA for peoplle biking, running, hiking etc. The trails were quieter than LA too. I expected to see people doing cardio everywhere,and that wasnt the case. It was perfect weather the entire time btw.

That all said, I liked the metro area and can see why it's so talked about on social media. It feels bigger than the 4 million CSA population for sure. I might like it more than others because I hike and like mountains, but the city was pretty solid imo. Feels like where the midwest meets the west to me. A bit of both.
Lodo and Rino felt very midwestern. So did Capitol Hill.

Oh,and Boulder has to be one of my favorite college towns now. Great place.