Growing Denver
The Smart Way
The best way to smartly grow
a rapidly expanding metropolitan city for everyone
How do we fix it?
New programs to address Denver's growth issues
Denver Government has implemented plans to improve sustainability, growth and resiliency as Denver moves forward.
Starting with the Denverright program which took input from thousands of “Denverites”, or local Denver civilians and businesses, and used the feedback to create a comprehensive plan to make Denver “a more inclusive, connected and healthy city”
The Denveright outreach program took the input from Denverites and implemented it into the Comprehensive Plan 2040.
The Comprehensive Plan 2040 is umbrella of plans which includes smaller more focused plans:
Game Plan for a Healthy City
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Easy access to parks and open space as a right for Denver citizens
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Make the park system more resilient, environmentally stable, help improve the health of citizens and manage resources for long term operational improvements
Blueprint Denver
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20 year citywide land use and transportation guide that focuses on completed neighborhoods and transportation systems.
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Creating a measured and common-sense approach to where Denver should grow and how
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Unique approach to growing neighborhoods taking into account social equity factors
Denver Moves: Pedestrians & Trails
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Improvement plan to make sidewalks, trails and street crossings more complete, comfortable and safer
Denver Moves: Transit
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A plan with RTD and Partners to make transit more reliable, frequent and convenient
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Improvements for pedestrian and bike infrastructure to make it safer and easier
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Promotes transit supportive land use and more stops in Denver
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Support for affordable fare programs
Ongoing programs focused on solving the issues
Other programs from the Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency has many programs it runs to help:
Sustainable Neighborhoods Program
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Program that gives residents the opportunity to be included in building sustainable neighborhoods
Certifiably Green Denver
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Business focused sustainability program
Energy Program
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Compliance program where buildings over 25,000 sq ft have to install a cool roof and select one of the compliance options
Pass Gas
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Improve and install electric vehicle plug-ins to incentivize and help transition to a more efficient driving system
Smart Leasing Program
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Provides tools, training and resources for both tenants and landlords for a healthy, energy-efficient buildings
Could Denver do better?
Denver has sustainability goals that it tries to reach every year
It was created in 2014, in collaboration with community stakeholders, to improve 24 goals in 12 sustainability areas.
Currently, 5 goals are off track, meaning that the city isn’t in line with meeting the goal for the year.
There are 6 on track to be met, one goal completed and one that has no update.
The 5 goals that are considered off track are goals which are directly influenced by the urbanization of Denver. Air quality, energy usage, food, and water quality are areas that we've seen urbanization influence. By growing Denver in a smart way, these goals could be met and exceeded.
Denver has started to implement some great programs to start to address the issues its facing.
The actual implementation and execution will be crucial to making sure that the issues are addressed properly.
Some of the flaws we've noticed include:
Housing programs that focus solely on assistance instead of incorporating development & zoning
To improve neighborhoods, housing costs and emissions, new developments with retail levels, more units, and green spaces could help with walkability of neighborhoods, traffic emissions and Denver's small business economy.
At the moment, many of Denver’s neighborhoods are zoned for single family housing, making it difficult for developers.
Developers are stuck with having to put developments in areas where there is less walkability, forcing residents to drive everywhere. With the right implementation of developments in neighborhoods that have better walkability aspects, housing costs would lower, there would be more demand for businesses and residents wouldn’t have to drive constantly.
In August, the Denver City Council started to approve the changes to single-family housing zoning in Denver.
Measurement system of how well the programs are working
The programs mentioned different goals to reach, but there wasn't an in-depth measurement system that would allow for accurate interpretation of how a specific program is affecting Denver overall.
There can always be outcomes in a different area that are unaccounted for, and if we reach a goal in one department we don't want it to be at the expense of anther.
What is Denver doing to better walkability?
In 2018, Denverite started to discuss walkability within different neighborhoods of Denver. The problem in neighborhoods such as DU and Virginia Village were that the sidewalks were too small. Many were 24" instead of the standard 36". Making small adjustments to make neighborhoods more pedestrian friendly are the first steps in making the city as a whole, more walkable. But in Denver implementing sidewalks can be difficult since each property owner has to be contacted. Implementing more pedestrian friendly areas in Denver will also include improving neighborhoods with high pedestrian accidents. To do this, instead of widening streets, narrowing streets for cars and using the gained space for biking and walking. The Denver Downtown Area Plan is the first guidelines for the next 20 years in guiding development to include walkability, green space and prosperous neighborhoods.
How could we look at Denver's problems differently?
We have seen that Denver is starting to focus more on developing and growing the city for humans rather than cars. This is a good start, but to further create a better city, reframing the issue can help to further the ideas to create a better city.
We started by changing our question, instead of "how can we grow Denver smarter?" to "how can we make Denver more enjoyable for everyone?" or "how can we make Denver more memorable?"
Through asking these questions we came up with different answers than the ones we had for our original question. Our answers included:
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Denver needs to be more accessible than just by car or RTD. Being able to get around a city with different modes of transportation is important in making a city more enjoyable and memorable.
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Encourage small business and unique businesses that offer entertainment. Thinking about other memorable cities they have memorable and unique businesses like restaurants, retail, arcades, museums, etc. that are unique and enjoyable.
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Create a better sense of community for citizens with more community centers, libraries, etc. that offers a space for the community to come to.
Find a Solution
Moving forward, the first step is to find a solution that helps solve the problems. We do this from reframing the problem and finding innovative ideas.
How do we Start?
After finding a solution, we then start to figure out how to implement the solution into Denver.
Start to Implement
Once we figure out how to start our solution, we then have to start the solution.
Measure & Change
After starting the solution, we then will go back and measure how the solution is doing and change what is not working.