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14 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / JUNE 2017
I sat on the Denver Planning Board in the
1990s and watched the beginning of today’s
debates about growth. When we developed
Blueprint Denver, the ideas about stability and
change emerged through community dialogue.
While good in concept, this idea has not worked
very well. Just because a neighborhood is “sta-
ble” does not mean it should never change, and
just because an area might “change” should not
mean anything goes. Our new zoning code has not
calmed the dialogue; instead, the discourse is more
divided than ever.
Should higher densities be allowed? That should
depend on the balanced judgment of people, in-
cluding the neighbors, considering the many con-
sequences of new development. But that does not
mean that the immediate neighbors should hold
veto power, nor does it mean that land use deci-
sions should go to a public vote, a demand that is
frequently made in cities that are even more divided
than ours.
One of the biggest limits to considered debate is
our newest tactical fad, fake news. Proponents and
opponents both label and assert things that elevate
the dialogue from semirational to mostly emotion-
al. Once that line is crossed, those who have turned
emotional rarely return to reason – no matter how
false the claims may be, their feelings are very real.
We can’t let alternative facts enter the decisions that
affect our quality of life and the safety and livability
of our neighborhoods. We are all in this together so
we need to find better ways of working together to
protect what we value.
As a native Chicagoan who grew up in the ’50s with
highly divided racial and ethnic neighborhoods,
I have always marveled at the diversity we find in
Denver neighborhoods. If you study any neighbor-
hood that you value in this city, you will see a crazy
quilt of house sizes, architecture, building age and
densities. You will find many quaint anomalies that
add character – streets that don’t quite line up, an
old corner store surrounded by houses, a little park,
mansions sitting right next to bungalows, duplexes
and old apartments amidst some of our highest val-
ue areas, and more.
Few Denver neighborhoods have the boring mo-
notony of most suburban areas. It is this diversity of
home sizes, unit types and architecture that makes
us resistant to rapid swings in value or other in-
stability. Our diversity means that homes sell and
apartments rent in random, never-ending cycles.
This keeps change from swinging too rapidly – until
this condition (and theory) was overwhelmed by our
most recent growth surge. Now, we see whole neigh-
borhoods under pressure to accept bigger and bigger
buildings. It is not hard to find David scowling at Go-
liath right across a local street.
As an urban designer for 40 years I have been on
both sides of the argument, sometimes advocating
for change and sometimes for preservation. Where
we have brownfields or deep blight, I still think
change is right, but only if design is exceptional and
respects the context. More and more, however, I fall
on the side of slowing our growth because the pace
of change is too great.
I once believed that growth was needed to keep
housing prices down. I was wrong. We have seen the
most rapid expansion of rental housing in history –
which has come with the most rapid rental increas-
es in history. Supply and demand are not as tightly
related as expected. We are facing unprecedented
in-migration, but we are also allowing it by claim-
ing that we must build to fill a need. A neighbor-
hood that was mostly bungalows and duplexes has
not become more affordable or better because it now
is fringed with five-story wrapped parking garages
or new towers. I live in one of these locations, and I
have yet to see any benefits other than rising prop-
erty values. I don’t mind looking for parking. I don’t
mind having more people around. I don’t even mind
more traffic (I bike to work). What I do mind is that
my neighborhood feels less cohesive, has fewer trees,
fewer porches, fewer kids and less sunlight.
We should improve our debates by thinking about
growth as something more complex than just big
buildings and traffic. I like to think about it in at
least these five categories:
Design. Most new projects won’t get high marks for
design. The same buildings are happening in every
neighborhood and every city. Designers are not fight-
ing back enough on their clients. Why does so much
growth look alike? Developers believe that designs
that have been approved elsewhere can be approved
here. Most of the time, this means taking a large
building and fragmenting it with shapes and mate-
rials to make it look like it is made of smaller parts.
The result isn’t good design, rather it is mannerism
pandering to some general notion of public opinion.
If a building is going to be large, give me one that is
skillfully proportioned, fenestrated and articulated,
and crafted with materials and details that make it
whole.
Scale. Most new projects are out of scale with their
context. This is usually a result of development eco-
nomics and inappropriate zoning. When these two
things come together, we get a developer who be-
lieves he has rights facing a community that is fight-
ing for its rights. This is too late in the process. Both
the community and the developer are victims. What
we need is to reconsider the role of neighborhood
planning. Let’s have them argue with each other
before the developers come along, and let’s create
neighborhood plans with both vision and teeth.
Congestion. This generally means traffic and park-
ing, but in fact congestion takes many forms. This is
an area where current thinking in urban planning
is growing rapidly. It is now clear that conventional
transportation planning is wrong. Congestion isn’t a
failure to move cars; it is a failure to give mobility to
people. Denver’s transportation staff includes some
Mark Johnson,
FASLA
President,
Civitas
Colorado Pulse