Thoughts on first Denver Visit

[LA21st]

Always amazes me when I think of explorers somehow getting through the mountains of the west. How did they know where to go? Were they climbing over these large mountains? My mind cant process it.

[Chico Loco]

I live a mile south of downtown Denver and have been here for a few decades. Be wary of commenters who say they live in Denver. When people say they are from here they are usually from a suburb.

Downtown was good 10-15 years ago. Not so much today. I don't know any of my friends who live here would go there. There are lots of sketchy people on and around the 16th Street Mall and no stores, etc., that you can't find anywhere else. A few months back I took someone from out of town who wanted to go there, and a crazy guy with a knife was chasing people around.

[wwmiv]

My post was deleted?

TL;DR: Denver Deserves Sidewalks sums up my experience as a pedestrian while living in the urban core.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Chico Loco

I live a mile south of downtown Denver and have been here for a few decades. Be wary of commenters who say they live in Denver. When people say they are from here they are usually from a suburb.

Downtown was good 10-15 years ago. Not so much today. I don't know any of my friends who live here would go there. There are lots of sketchy people on and around the 16th Street Mall and no stores, etc., that you can't find anywhere else. A few months back I took someone from out of town who wanted to go there, and a crazy guy with a knife was chasing people around.

Interesting. I didnt know 16th St had this image, it seemed ok on my few times there. I saw some weird people early in the morning and didnt hang around so much at night. So I can't really give the best observation. It did feel like its past its heyday though.' Saturday or Friday night felt decently busy?

14th and 15th streets felt emptier, which is weird given there's more hotels there. I don't know whats happening there.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by Chico Loco

I live a mile south of downtown Denver and have been here for a few decades. Be wary of commenters who say they live in Denver. When people say they are from here they are usually from a suburb.

Downtown was good 10-15 years ago. Not so much today. I don't know any of my friends who live here would go there. There are lots of sketchy people on and around the 16th Street Mall and no stores, etc., that you can't find anywhere else. A few months back I took someone from out of town who wanted to go there, and a crazy guy with a knife was chasing people around.

Guilty as charged. I happen to be one of those crazy people who think that our municipal boundaries are largely arbitrary and that the city extends beyond Denver proper. I have some good friends who live in Baker (about a mile south of downtown Denver) and I spend time there and on South Broadway frequently. Living in a suburb does not mean that a person cannot also spend time in the city. What is crazy is that I can actually get downtown on a train from Arvada nearly fast as my friends can from their little transit-black hole around 3rd and Santa Fe.

When Denver stopped building condos in 2008 and existing home prices show through the roof, I realized I will never be able to afford a home in central Denver. I'm also a believer in TOD, so I set my sights on Olde Town Arvada. I have some gripes with the Planning politics out here in the burbs, but otherwise I like being on the west end of town. It is closer to the mountains, closer to my husband's job, and not far from Boulder (where my parents live). I used to ride the train downtown every day during grad school and still visit Denver frequently. When the new Colfax BRT begins running, we will probably even ditch the car and try using transit to get out there. Even when we are using our car like good red-blooded Americans, we often find ourselves in places like Tennyson and Sloan's Lake (in Denver). I can meet my brother in The Highlands in less than 15 minutes from my front door.

I'm not going to try to sit here and defend downtown in the post-COVID era because it is clearly struggling. But it is not the hellhole some people make it out to be. Denver was a LOT rougher around the edges before the mid-90s. Downtown was also pretty much a boring 8am-5pm business district up until at least the mid 2000s. A lot of the recent trouble on 16th Street was because the entire street was behind construction fences for almost five years, creating a classic "eyes on the street" problem. The crazy guy with a knife incident definitely made for salacious headlines, and also could have happened in just about any big city where there are homeless people who have mental health problems.

16th Street construction is done now and the street looks great. I still ride the train down there on a regular basis and downtown definitely isn't dead. Perhaps the LoDo end of things has more going on these days, but that has been the case for at least 10 years now. My favorite new local coffee shop recently opened up in a shuttered Starbucks at 16th and Market Street. Some days, believe it or not, the train is actually packed and there are plenty of people out and about near the station having fun. Denver Pride month starts this week and the festival will be up and down 16th Street all month so I can't wait to check it out!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mr1138

Guilty as charged. I happen to be one of those crazy people who think that our municipal boundaries are largely arbitrary and that the city extends beyond Denver proper. I have some good friends who live in Baker (about a mile south of downtown Denver) and I spend time there and on South Broadway frequently. Living in a suburb does not mean that a person cannot also spend time in the city. What is crazy is that I can actually get downtown on a train from Arvada nearly fast as my friends can from their little transit-black hole around 3rd and Santa Fe.

Why not just say that you live in a suburb of Denver?

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why not just say that you live in a suburb of Denver?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I just say that?

Either way, I still consider myself a Denver local. The built environment influences my life way more than arbitrary political borders ever do.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mr1138

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I just say that?

It seemed as if you were saying that you describe yourself as being from/living in Denver.

Anyway, there is clearly a distinct between living near a large, well-known place, and living within the boundaries of that large, well-known place.

[IcedCowboyCoffee]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why not just say that you live in a suburb of Denver?

Not that poster, but I'll say most of the time this is a distinction without a difference. When we express where we are from we are not usually trying to express what specific set of municipal laws we're governed by; nor for that matter is that generally what someone asking us about it is wanting to find out. They're just trying to pinpoint us on the map of the world they have in their head, and we assume most people who are listening to us don't have intimate knowledge of the dozens of ring suburbs around every major city center across the world. Language is flexible and that includes how we use names and their context. The name Denver can encompass a cultural area as justifiably as it can a municipal boundary.

It's just easier to say "I'm from Denver" and wait for them to ask "what part of Denver?" to know if one's specific corner of the Denver metro area is relevant information or if that would just be a series of syllables forgotten as quickly as they were heard. "...it's near Denver."

And besides, on the technicality train, 90% of Denver proper is suburban in character anyways. It's really only if you live in downtown Denver that one's very specific living situation becomes an outlier worth mentioning.
There's very little distinguishing the buildings on the north side of W Yale ave from the buildings on the south side of W Yale ave, but anyone on the north side gets to say they live in Denver proper and cloak themselves in assumed authority on what life in Denver is really like that their Englewood neighbors across the street do not.

[mhays]

Agreed. We live in urban agglomerations, mostly independent of administrative sub-divisions. Being located on one side of a line or the other doesn't change what teams we root for, what neighborhoods we visit, etc., except as a function of distance, or maybe paying the city's B&O tax.

[mr1138]

You both took the words right out of my mouth. That is exactly what I mean.

The fact that, in my case, I live on west of Sheridan as opposed to east of it makes no difference as to whether or not I think I can say I am "from Denver." If somebody is interested and wants to know specifically what part of the Denver area I am from, I am more than happy to tell them I live in a suburb called Arvada.

What is ridiculous is where people start to use these arbitrary political borders, that most of us had no say whatsoever in creating, as a way of establishing social rank. This isn't exactly Manhattan Island we are talking about. Or some really historic European city.

"Yes, you live in Rome, but do you live in Rome inside or outside of the walls?"

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

Agreed. We live in urban agglomerations, mostly independent of administrative sub-divisions. Being located on one side of a line or the other doesn't change what teams we root for, what neighborhoods we visit, etc., except as a function of distance, or maybe paying the city's B&O tax.

This very much depends. I live very close to Manhattan in an environment that most people could not differentiate from Manhattan, but it would be extremely misleading for me to tell people I live in Manhattan. Likewise, it would be very misleading for someone who lives just outside of New York City to say that they live in New York City. This would be true for a number of other cities too, although maybe not necessarily Denver.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This very much depends. I live very close to Manhattan in an environment that most people could not differentiate from Manhattan, but it would be extremely misleading for me to tell people I live in Manhattan. Likewise, it would be very misleading for someone who lives just outside of New York City to say that they live in New York City. This would be true for a number of other cities too, although maybe not necessarily Denver.

I feel like NYC is an extremely unique situation for geographic, historical, and cultural reasons. In most US metro areas, things are more akin to the five boroughs BEFORE they were consolidated. Or London prior to the creation of Greater London.

Part of this is also a political question about whether the municipal boundaries align with the urban agglomerations we actually live in. I would argue they do not. Saying I'm "from Denver" is also a form of silent protest to acknowledge that I feel I should get to claim this identity too.

I would go so far as to argue that the suburban governance model does not serve the people very well and that the annexation process that created the suburbs are not something any of us really consented to. It leads to poor metrowide governance and bad zoning decisions. In many, many cases, including metro Denver, I would actually argue we should dissolve most suburbs and establish a borough system of government.

[mhays]

London's a great example. When "the City" was a square mile, most people had no idea that their hotel off Trafalgar Square was actually nowhere near London.

A person living in Hackney wouldn't say they live in the West End of course. If you're specifically noting a section of town then you should use your own. But you still said you were from London in many cases.

Your opinions about "London" didn't suddenly become more relevant when the city agglomerated...unless you were talking about administrative matters that you now experienced.

[mr1138]

Delete: Duplicate post

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This very much depends. I live very close to Manhattan in an environment that most people could not differentiate from Manhattan, but it would be extremely misleading for me to tell people I live in Manhattan. Likewise, it would be very misleading for someone who lives just outside of New York City to say that they live in New York City. This would be true for a number of other cities too, although maybe not necessarily Denver.

Yeah I'd say that's probably the biggest difference - whether it's just an administrative boundary or a physical boundary. Manhattan is a land form separated from other land by physical barriers so it makes sense to exclude anything beyond that boundary. But with people living near NYC, I don't see any issue with them saying they're from NYC when speaking to people from far enough away not to know the difference. NJ and LI have their own well established identities, so if they lived near NYC in either place, most people would recognize the terms NJ or LI so there's no need to round them into NYC. But someone from say, Yonkers, it would make the most sense to just say NYC when speaking to anyone outside the US NE.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mr1138

What is ridiculous is where people start to use these arbitrary political borders, that most of us had no say whatsoever in creating, as a way of establishing social rank.

It's not always about social rank.

Resentment can play a big role too.

But that's probably a lot more common in the rustbelt than in a metro area like Denver.



But this whole discussion demonstrates how useful a metro area having its own name can be, such as with "Chicago" and "Chicagoland".

I'm guessing "Denverland" isn't a thing?

[Six Corners]

Every home and business you can see (and lack thereof) in the 360 degrees of this Streetview image is within Denver City limits: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yEadtfd88AyWG4ij8. The people who live there vote for the same mayor as someone who lives in LoDo, they are served by the same fire department, if a streetlight goes out on their street they call the same department to come and fix it, etc. They likely have a wildly different relationship with the built environment than someone in LoDo and yet both the people here and the people in LoDo are equally citizens of the City of Denver.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

It's not always about social rank.

Resentment can play a big role too.

But that's probably a lot more common in the rustbelt than in a metro area like Denver.



But this whole discussion demonstrates how useful a metro area having its own name can be, such as with "Chicago" and "Chicagoland".

I'm guessing "Denverland" isn't a thing?

The closest thing we have is "The Front Range," which is a silly coloqueal way of saying you live in the urban corridor between Colorado Spring and Fort Collins (we should actually call it the Colorado Piedmont since the Front Range is an actual mountain range to the west). But that would cover exurbs and other places that are definitely outside of Denver.

We have 3/4 of a completed beltway, so we could use the term "inside the beltway" (except that nobody here actually says that).


Interesting comment about resentment. Can you expand? Do you mean the city resenting the suburbs, or the other way around? Because I can see it going both ways.

Municipal boundaries say more about the laws and annexation policies of that particular place than anything else. In Phoenix, Houston, or Oklahoma City, the majority of the cities are just places that would be suburbs in other parts of America. Denver, on the other hand, was constrained by Colorado voters by the Poundstone Amendment in 1974. That certainly reflected a sort of resentment of the city, as it was couched as being to "prevent Denver from abusing its status and size."

On the other hand, I would argue that the creation of the suburbs was largely about land developers wanting to write their own subdivision regulations rather than play ball with the established zoning and subdivision regulations of the core city. As such, their existence really only makes sense in the context of their creation and in serving the interests of the developers who built them. But does that same resentment of the center city and its policies still ring true? I suppose the honest answer is it really depends.

There are lots of examples throughout history of adjacent cities being annexed together. Sometimes it takes centuries and sometimes not (I'm thinking of Delfthaven and Rotterdam, Hollywood and LA, Altona and Hamburg, just to name a few).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mr1138

Interesting comment about resentment. Can you expand?

Back during the urban dark ages, when everyone and their brother was trying to get the fuck outta dodge, many of those who remained in the city to keep the torch lit came to resent the leavers.

"You fucking left City X of your own damn accord, so you don't get to claim a City X identity anymore. That shit belongs to us now, not you easy-way-out quitters."

Like I said earlier, probably more of a rustbelt thing.