Cities, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp.

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City profile
Denver
Michael Murray*
Reader in Environmental Planning, School of Environmental Planning, Queen’s
University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Denver has emerged from the 1990s as a city region experiencing rapid growth. This has been
fuelled by a vibrant local economy, which has adjusted itself from dependency on an earlier oil
boom to greater reliance on the information and communications technology sector. The current
planning and development challenges are dominated by the need to deal with urban sprawl and
pressured transportation infrastructure. The contemporary restructuring of the physical fabric of
Denver is marked by a progressive downtown revitalisation effort and a number of space extensive
brownfield development projects. The interplay of state and local governments with commercial
interests and citizens is a powerful dynamic in shaping these negative and positive outcomes. 
2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Geographical and historical
context
The popular imagery of Denver as a
frontier town is reinforced by its
location at the foot of the Rocky Moun-
tains on the western edge of the high
plains comprising the rural heartland of
the United States (Fig. 1). Known
widely as the “Mile High City”, Denver
is one of the few cities at altitude in
North America. This perception as a
place apart translates to strong tra-
ditions of privatism, which is worked
through as a rugged individualism and
a strong business ethic. These charac-
teristics have helped evolve a city
region of almost 2.5 million people,
which represents some 56% of the Col-
orado total for 2000.1 Contemporary
Denver, therefore, comprises much
more than the administrative area of the
City and County of Denver. Rather it
is an eight county territory of which
some 535 square miles are classified as
urban land. The extent of semi-urban
*Tel.: +44 2890 274743; fax: +44 2890
687651; E-mail: m.r.murray@qub.ac.uk
1 2
Population and household information for
2000 from Denver Regional Council of
Governments.
land, where housing density is in the
range of 1 acre to 35 acres per dwell-
ing, adds a further 846 square miles.2
The marketing literature for new homes
on the urban edge of Denver makes fre-
quent use of a high amenity association
with the ‘Great Outdoors’ and residen-
tial exclusivity as powerful metaphors
for carefree living. On the other hand,
one commentary has described the spa-
tial outcome as ‘an amorphous, auto-
mobile addicted metropolis comprising
subdivisions, shopping centres and
smog’ (Leonard and Noel, 1990).
Road based transportation infrastruc-
ture not only seeks to facilitate intra-
city region mobility, but has allowed
Denver to exert a wider influence for
service take-up and daily commuting.
Interstate 25, for example, which runs
parallel to the Front Range, has
prompted intense development pressure
along a 140 mile corridor between Fort
Collins in the north and Colorado
Springs to the south. Interstate 70,
which crosses the Rockies, has facili-
tated considerable growth to the west
Denver Regional Council of Governments
memorandum Draft forecasts for the semi
urban area, March 7, 2001.
of Denver, not least related to the many
ski resorts such as Vail, Breckenridge,
Copper Mountain and Keystone. In
short, the extensive spatial scale of
Denver and its focality combine to cre-
ate a multiplicity of planning chal-
lenges whose resolution brings continu-
ally to the fore a blending of powerful
personality and interest group advocacy.
The built environment legacy of suc-
cessive civic leaders is evidence of that
development and change determi-
nation. From its beginning as a gold
rush town in the late 1850s, Denver
sought to proclaim itself through, for
example, newspaper owner William
Byers, as the “Queen City of the
Plains”. In 1881, five years after Color-
ado gained statehood, Denver was
chosen as the state capital. Work
started on the current State Capitol
building in 1886 and was completed in
1904. At that point the passage of a
new city charter for urban beautifi-
cation, sponsored by the administration
of mayor Robert Speer, initiated a sus-
tained effort through to his death in
1918 to create a Denver interpretation
of the City Beautiful ideal. Inspired by
Daniel Burnham’s 1893 design of the
World’s Columbian Exposition in the

283

Figure 1 Denver and its locational conext
Chicago fairgrounds, Speer embarked
on an ambitious plan to construct a new
City Hall, completed in 1932, within
the neo classical setting of an adjacent
public park. Additional parks and tree-
lined parkway networks complemented
his vision. During his terms of office
Speer expanded the Denver park sys-
tem from some 570 acres to almost
1200 acres. A suite of mountain parks
in the foothills and Front Range to the
west of the city represented a further
contribution to this City Beautiful
dream for Denver (Noel and Norgren,
1987).
As illustrated in Fig. 2, Denver
County was able comfortably to con-
tain the extent of urban growth from
those early years of the 20th century
through to 1940. Thereafter, the period
through to 1960 evidenced an outward
spread of development into the fringes
of adjacent counties, a trend which
intensified greatly during the following
two decades up to 1980. In terms of
population this grew from 454,000 in
1940, to almost 940,000 in 1960, reach-
ing some 1.6 million within the city
region by 1980. The increasing domi-
nance of Denver within Colorado is
illustrated by the fact that its share of
the state population increased from
284
City profile: Michael Murray
40% in 1940 to reach its current level
of 56% over two decades ago in 1980.
While the Depression of the 1930s
did bring its share of misfortune to
Denverites, the threat and subsequent
outbreak of World War Two brought a
considerable military and federal
government presence to the city and
provided an essential kick-start to this
renewed expansion. The opening of the
1800 acre Lowry Air Base to the south
east of the city in 1938, followed by
Buckley airfield in 1942 and the expan-
sion at Fitzsimmon’s Army Hospital
generated new businesses and jobs.3 A
complement of war industries provided
additional employment, including the
manufacturing of bombs at Rocky
Mountain Arsenal to the east of the
city, while the completion of a plu-
tonium facility for the Atomic Energy
Commission in 1953 was employing
over 6000 workers in the north west of
Denver by the 1980s.
The overall scale of these develop-
ments has exerted a considerable
influence on shaping the urban foot-
print of Denver and in the case of
3
A full discussion of this wartime era is con-
tained in Leonard, S and Noel, T (1990) op
cit, pp 219–234.
Lowry Air Base, as discussed below,
has created a major brownfield devel-
opment opportunity following the
announcement of a decision to close the
base in April 1991. However, the trans-
formation of the physical fabric of
Denver in recent times, especially its
central business district, owes much to
the operations of the oil industry which
increasingly saw Denver as an invest-
ment locale from the 1960s.4 The shock
of rising petroleum prices in the after-
math of the 1973 global oil crisis
prompted rediscovery of Colorado’s oil
shale deposits. Energy and finance cor-
porations viewed Denver as an attract-
ive location for regional offices and
thus began a flurry of skyscraper con-
struction projects, which today give
Denver its distinctive downtown sky-
line. Almost 20 million square feet of
prime office space was provided by the
early 1980s (Goodstein, 1999). How-
ever, falling oil prices in the mid 1980s
combined with corporate policy
decisions rejecting the viability of oil
shale extraction led to a combination of
business downsizing, withdrawal from
4
An excellent account of the oil industry in
Denver is set out in Goodstein (1999).

Figure 2 The changing footprint of Denver metropolitan region. Source: Denver Regional Council of Governments
Denver and bankruptcy. Commercial
property vacancy was endemic, rental
costs collapsed and through the 1990s
Denver increasingly ceased to be a
leading oil centre. Economic and physi-
cal regeneration thus loomed large as
political imperatives in the aftermath of
that experience. This profile will deal
more fully with the outputs and conse-
quences of that revitalisation effort dur-
ing the past decade, but before moving
on to these substantive matters it is
necessary to review very briefly the
recent socio-economic and citizen
diversity situations in Denver, together
with the governance arrangements in
place for planning and development.
The contemporary socio-
economic context
Between 1990 and 2000 the population
of Colorado increased from 3.3 million
to 4.3 million. This growth, of almost
31%, ranks the state third on the basis
of per cent based change in the USA
and eighth on the basis of numeric
change. The growth dynamic in the
Denver city region underpins this per-
formance with population over that per-
iod increasing by some 555,000. A key
engine for the increase has been net
City profile: Michael Murray
migration with estimates5 suggesting
that this can account for some 59% of
total population gain. Over the next 20
years the Denver region’s population
could grow to about 3.225 million
people representing 1.35 million house-
holds, up from a current count of
959,000 households.6 This translates to
a continuation of development pressure
for new housing and related infrastruc-
ture and has implications for current
work related to longer term growth
planning.
The strong population dynamic in
Colorado in general, and the Denver
region in particular, reflects a dramatic
restructuring of the state economy dur-
ing the past 20 years. From a heavy
dependence on resource-based indus-
try, notably the mining and agriculture
sectors, the economic base has shifted
to creative business ventures, linked
especially to information and com-
munications technology along with
financial services and retailing. Thus,
for example, farm based employment
in the state decreased between 1981
5 80,000 new jobs were created in
Denver Regional Council of Governments
regional growth data.
6
Denver Regional Council of Governments
2020 Regional Forecast Summary.
and 1990 from 44,650 jobs to 43,600
jobs, while mining decreased from
50,000 to 26,500 jobs (Murray and
Dunn, 1996). In contrast, 47,900 new
high tech jobs were added to state
employment between 1993 and 1998.
During the 1990s Colorado was the
fourth fastest growing economy in the
USA with the Denver city region at its
core. The continued expansion of the
1970s Denver Tech Centre in the south
east suburbs of the city has been comp-
lemented by the clustering during the
1990s of convergence industry corpora-
tions in the north west along the US 36
Denver–Boulder Corridor.
Concerns have increased since mid
2000 about recession, as manifested by
lower earnings and redundancies,
although some commentators do
remain bullish about future prospects.7
Thus, within the Denver metropolitan
area the unemployment rate of 2.3%
has remained largely unchanged from
then through to mid 2001. The strength
of the Denver economy is now seen as
resting on its greater diversity in com-
parison with the earlier reliance on oil
and gas up to the late 1980s. Almost
7
Rocky Mountain News, 21st July 2001.
285

Denver City and County alone between
1991 and 2000.8 Nevertheless, the
announcement in January 2002 of the
closure of Merrill Lynch at its 420,000
square feet Denver campus and its offer
of relocation to New Jersey or Florida
to its 1065 employees suggests a slip-
ping economy. When set beside the
facts that metro-wide around 2.2
million square feet of new office space
was sitting empty at that time, and that
Colorado employers are expected to
create only 10,000 new jobs in 2002
compared with an average of over
69,000 per year for the last decade, it
would seem fair to conclude that a
major reversal of positive projections is
indeed plausible. It is predicted that any
recovery of the Denver area office mar-
ket from this economic slowdown may
well not be before 2005.9
Citizen diversity and Denver
neighbourhoods
When analysed in terms of race and
ethnicity, the population structure of
the Denver metropolitan area displays
growing diversity.10 Across the eight
county city region the White population
increased from 1.61 million in 1990 to
1.95 million in 2000, but experienced
a fall of some six percentage points to
80.56% of the total population. African
Americans increased from 96,592 to
118,858 persons though their share of
the population remained relatively
unchanged at around 5%. The much
smaller Asian population almost
doubled from 42,357 to 74,311. A most
pronounced rate of growth is apparent
within the Hispanic grouping which
recorded increments of over 100% in
five out of eight counties, with overall
numbers rising from 223,670 in 1990
to 428,225 by 2000. While all counties
display deepening diversity the concen-
tration in 2000 of Hispanics (175,704
or 41% of the grouping) and African
Americans (61,649 or 52% of the
grouping) within Denver County is
especially striking. Older neighbour-
8
The City and County of Denver Mayor’s
Office Press Release, 18 December 2000.
9 11
Denver Post, Wednesday 9th January and
Thursday 10th January, 2002.
10
2000 and 1990 Population by race, eth-
nicity and age, Denver Regional Council
of Governments.
286
City profile: Michael Murray
hoods, especially those encircling the
central business district, are quite dis-
tinctively associated with these and
other minority residents.
In the past, redevelopment generated
considerable displacement of diverse
populations living in inner city neigh-
bourhoods. Notable in this context was,
for example, the creation of the com-
muter based Auraria higher education
campus on the western fringe of Down-
town in the 1970s. The retention of
church structures within this district
serve as a physical reminder of a once
closely settled community. It is sig-
nificant, therefore, that the Denver
Comprehensive Plan 2000 should
devote an entire chapter to neighbour-
hoods many of which are equally vul-
nerable to the economics of the pro-
perty market. The Plan notes that rising
housing costs have made affordable
housing more difficult to find for low
and middle income families, while
pressure for infill development can
undermine the long established visual
character of a neighbourhood. One
measure of the efforts by public agenc-
ies to work with local citizens is the
increased participation of Registered
Neighbourhood Organisations. The
programme began in 1976 with 30
neighbourhoods and, by 1999, totalled
173 groups whose concerns are spread
across all aspects of community life
from schools’ provision to crime
reduction. Community grassroots
organizations and their activities are
thus an important feature of neighbour-
hood life and in this regard a growing
body of international research under-
lines the important linkage of com-
munity capacity and wellbeing. Within
the wider Denver metropolitan area, the
grant based support given by the Color-
ado Trust over the period since 1985 is
a prominent illustration of intervention
to strengthen families and secure
accessible and affordable health care
programmes. Its statewide $8.8 million
Healthy Communities Initiative, begun
in 1992, has worked with several citi-
zen and neighbourhood coalitions in
the metro area on a wide range of com-
munity enhancement projects (Murray,
2000). This effort has been reinforced
by the announcement in 2000, by
Mayor Wellington Webb of the Focus
Neighbourhoods Initiative, which seeks
to concentrate public, private and non-
profit sector funding on 16 of the city’s
lower income neighbourhoods for par-
ticipatory community revitalization.11
Planning and development
governance
The state of Colorado legislature has
delegated most authority for land use
planning and regulation to local
governments through a range of enact-
ments. An important characteristic of
the legislation is its enabling rather than
mandatory role, which in turn has
implications for a consistency of policy
formation and application, not least
within the Denver area. Local govern-
ment statutes provide for the appoint-
ment of a planning commission in each
county and municipality whose duty it
is to prepare and adopt a comprehen-
sive plan (or master plan) to guide the
physical development of its jurisdic-
tion. The identification of suitable lands
for future growth together with the gen-
eral location of streets, amenity space
and public utilities are key elements of
each comprehensive plan. The Color-
ado American Planning Association
Chapter has recently argued12 that com-
prehensive plans should also include an
urban growth boundary, which is based
on the jurisdiction’s ability to provide
infrastructure and services for the
plan’s twenty year time frame. Linked
with this should be a clear statement of
what will be permissible within and
outside that boundary. However, by
April 2000 only 23 out of 49 local
governments within the Denver city
region had either adopted an urban
growth boundary into their comprehen-
sive plans or had enacted an ordinance
or resolution establishing an urban
growth boundary (Broderick, 2000).
While those participating authorities
account for some 92% of the regional
population, a key concern remains the
availability of a long term supply of
potential urban land. Beneath this issue
lies the more serious matter of the
future fiscal health and tax base of any
local authority which seeks to constrain
that supply. Given this combination of
City and County of Denver, Housing and
Neighbourhood Development Services.
12
Colorado American Planning Association
Chapter Position Statement on Growth Man-
agement Legislation, May 2001.

local scale decision making and vary-
ing political support for growth man-
agement clarity, it would seem appro-
priate that the governance of planning
and development in Denver should also
seek strategic expression on a
regional scale.
Recognition of the need for a
regional perspective to co-ordinate
local government action is longstand-
ing in Denver. In 1955 the then mayor
of the City, Quigg Newton, was instru-
mental in the establishment of a four
county layer of governance dialogue,
which was named the Inter-County
Regional Planning Association. This
subsequently became the Denver
Regional Council of Governments
(DRCOG, 2000) whose collective
efforts embrace planning and growth,
transportation, the environment, pro-
vision of services to the elderly, and
workforce development. DRCOG is
one of 14 regional planning councils
across Colorado designated by the
state, but it is also a federally supported
Metropolitan Planning Organisation
with responsibility for the distribution
of federal transportation funds to the
region. However, in relation to strategic
land use planning, concerns have fre-
quently been expressed that DRCOG
‘lacks teeth’ in policy implementation.
Indeed this was recognised in a major
1991 review of the organisation whose
findings commented more widely as
follows:
“The existing system of regional
governance in the Denver metropoli-
tan area is comprised of a variety of
independent, single purpose districts
and authorities providing services on
a regional basis in the areas of waste-
water treatment, drainage and flood
control, transportation, cultural
facilities, air quality, sports facilities
and water. The only multi-functional
agency, DRCOG, though it includes
most of the region’s local govern-
ments as members and provides
important services, is fundamentally
a voluntary agency whose plans and
recommendations are not binding on
local governments, special districts
or other regional agencies. This frag-
mented and often competitive
approach is not designed for tough
decision-making, resolution of con-
flicts, or implementation of a vision
of future growth and development in
any systematic manner. The Denver
metro area continues to evolve as a
regional community without the
emergence of an effective mech-
City profile: Michael Murray
anism that can address metro-wide
issues from a regional perspective…
An integrated regional governance
structure is needed to improve co-
operation and collaboration on
regional issues” (The Metro Forum
(1991)
The current controversy on growth
management in the Denver city region
has allowed for this structural weakness
in planning and development govern-
ance to be revisited and is one of a
number of key perspectives, also com-
prising downtown revitalisation, trans-
portation and brownfield utilisation, to
be explored in the remainder of this
profile.
Key planning and
development perspectives
Growth management
The pace and scale of population
expansion in the Denver region has
generated considerable public debate
on the impact of sprawl and the need
for greater urban containment. The
Sierra Club has, for example, been
active on this issue and has identified
sprawl along the Northern Front Range
in the environs of Denver as compris-
ing rural subdivisions isolated from
retail services and schools, scattered
subdivisions within the urban fringe
consisting of large homes on large acre-
ages, and retail developments on high-
way interchanges in open countryside.
The causes are cited as a weak land use
planning and regulatory environment,
public subsidies for business growth
and land use conversion, continued
over-emphasis on new and wider roads,
a poor agricultural economy, and com-
petition between communities for tax
revenues.13 However, alternative opi-
nions frequently point to the benefits of
expanded housing and community
choices linked to perceptions of ‘better
quality of life’.
The Colorado Public Interest
Research Group14 (COPIRG) has
13
See the Sierra Club’s report Sprawl costs
us all, Chapter 1: The pace of sprawl and
growth on the Northern Front Range, Janu-
ary 2000.
14
CPIRG is an advocate for the public inter-
est and in addition to its Annual Report it
publishes CPIRG Outlook three times each
year. Responsible growth is only one of
many issues that COPIRG is currently
active on.
emerged as a powerful advocate on this
matter especially over the period since
1998. In pointing to survey data15 indi-
cating strong citizen support for
enforceable anti-sprawl plans, compati-
bility between the plans of neighbour-
ing local jurisdictions and the adoption
of urban growth boundaries to limit
sprawl, COPIRG co-sponsored a
Responsible Growth Initiative for the
November 2000 ballot.16 This initiative
(Amendment 24) sought firstly, to
change the state constitution by requir-
ing voter approval for new develop-
ment plans; secondly, full disclosure on
the impacts and costs of new develop-
ment on traffic, schools, open space, air
quality and emergency services; and
thirdly, to promote responsible growth
by allowing development in those areas
where the support infrastructure can be
afforded within a ten year period.
Working with citizen groups across the
state, the coalition collected over
100,000 signatures and secured its
place on the ballot. The development
industry across Colorado and beyond,
responded vigorously through an
unprecedented $6 million advertising
campaign seeking to influence voters to
reject the amendment. While the prop-
osition subsequently failed by a ratio of
two to one, it did result in new pressure
being placed on Colorado legislators to
recommence action on this issue. Com-
prehensive growth management bills17
were debated by both the Colorado
House and Senate during 2001 but were
killed by partisan politics. Nor were
Special Sessions of the General
Assembly convened by Governor
Owens able to resolve differences
among legislators in relation to regional
planning for metropolitan Denver, the
creation of an alternative dispute resol-
ution system between and among cities
and counties, and support for manda-
tory and binding comprehensive plan-
15
University of Colorado at Denver survey
sponsored by the Gates Foundation.
16
Other co-sponsors were the Colorado
Environmental Coalition, Sierra Club, West-
ern Colorado Congress, the American Plan-
ning Association of Colorado, and Colorado
photographer Mr John Fielder.
17
SB148 and HB 1225. The Colorado Chap-
ter of the American Planning Association
has published a guide to this comprehensive
growth management legislation. This is
available on its website.
287

ning documents. The need to require
each county and municipality to pre-
pare a master plan and to enforce these
master plans through ordinances and
regulations are perceived by a wide
coalition of environmental interests,
including the State Chapter of the
American Planning Association, as
major and continuing shortcomings of
local legislation. The protection of
open space and farmlands in the face
of sprawling development is viewed as
necessary to help maintain the special
character of Colorado.
In the meantime, growth manage-
ment policies across the Denver region
at the strategic scale remain dependent
on the voluntary collaboration of local
governments with prodding from
DRCOG through its Metro Vision 2020
effort. This planning process was
initiated in 1990 by a delegated task
force including representatives from
local government, business, and
environmental groups. It was charged
with devising a set of principles and
policies to assist with regional land use,
transportation and water planning. Fol-
lowing the analysis of a range of scen-
arios, the task force defined its future
development preference in Metro
Vision 2020. This was subsequently
adopted by DRCOG in 1997. Core
elements of this regional vision are the
designation of the extent of urban
development within a specified area,
the creation of a balanced multi-modal
transportation system, the establish-
ment of a hierarchy of mixed use, ped-
estrian and transit oriented urban
centres, the preservation of the physical
identity of the four free-standing com-
munities of Boulder, Brighton, Castle
Rock, and Longmont and the protection
of the region’s natural environment. In
defining the extent of urban develop-
ment across Denver, Metro Vision
2020 suggested that this should occur
within a total area of 735 square miles
by 2020 thus adding 165 square miles
to the existing urban footprint. In
August 2000 an initial 30 cities and
counties within the Denver region for-
mally signed what is referred to as the
“Mile High Compact” thus marking a
voluntary commitment to work within
these core elements without mandate
from other government entities.18
18
DRCOG Regional Report, September
2000, pp 1–3.
288
City profile: Michael Murray
In March 2001 DRCOG published a
review of the 735 square miles goal and
forecast that the urbanised area could
increase to a total of 2106 square miles
by 2020 when the impact of 1371
square miles of semi-urban develop-
ment are taken into account. Large lot
development had not been addressed by
Metro Vision and, in the absence of
legislation to tighten urban growth, this
low density housing is anticipated to
increase from a 1998 base of 846
square miles. There is, additionally,
pressure from at least one county to
extend the 735 square mile target to
850 square miles.19 Furthermore, the
Home Builders Association of Metro-
politan Denver has been lobbying for
the reform of DRCOG to include rep-
resentatives from the business and the
community sectors and for the “ability
to review local initiatives that have a
regional impact, like growth caps and
moratoria”.20 Thus the merits of an
agreed and binding growth manage-
ment regional plan for all local govern-
ments in the Denver area and its
relationship with the future shape of
regional governance will continue as
important debates for the foreseeable
future. A key feature of that dialogue
will set pressure for edge of city green-
field development against interior infill,
although in each instance the politics of
the planning arena will ensure that any
policy outcome cannot be exclusive of
the ‘other position’.
Downtown revitalisation
While planning and development issues
have contemporary prominence on the
urban edge, the urban renewal perspec-
tive is dominated by the transformation
of downtown Denver over the period
since the 1960s. As noted by the
Denver Comprehensive Plan 2000:
“Within downtown neighbourhoods,
swathes of streets, homes and older
commercial buildings were razed to be
replaced by skyscrapers, freeways and
the other trappings of a truly ‘modern’
19
Colorado Chapter of the American Plan-
ning Association News Release Growth
forecasts alarm planners, 13th March 2001.
20
Growth management: problems, chal-
lenges and opportunities, A paper by the
Home Builders Association of Metropolitan
Denver and the Wirth Chair in Environmen-
tal and Community Development Policy,
University of Colorado at Denver,
December 1999, p 4.
city” (Denver City Council (2000). The
ill-fated oil boom of the 1970s, as noted
above, was a key driver of change and
left a legacy of glass towers and adjac-
ent parking lots. The visual blight of
over 200 surface lots21 in downtown
Denver continues to underline the scale
of the challenge in broadening public
support for more sustainable mobility
solutions.
A key agency of City government in
promoting and facilitating downtown
redevelopment has been the Denver
Urban Renewal Authority (DURA)22
formed in 1958 to assist with the elim-
ination of slums. One of its earliest
initiatives was the Skyline Urban
Renewal Project23 located within a 29
block, 113 acre tract between Lower
Downtown and the retail core and fin-
ancial district of Upper Downtown.
Following an initial ballot rejection, the
scheme was approved by voters in
1967 thus facilitating a programme of
demolition and rebuilding which,
although initially slow to take off, gath-
ered momentum with the oil boom of
the late 1970s. Notable features of the
initiative included a network of ped-
estrian ‘sky bridges’ which were
designed to connect from one high rise
building to another above the traffic,
and the setting out of a 100 feet wide,
three blocks long ‘skyline park’ (Fig.
3). The opening of the Tabor Centre in
1984 between 16th and 17th streets to
include offices, a hotel and a multi-
level suite of shops marked the com-
pletion of the Skyline Project. In 2001
this three storey retail complex was
undergoing a structural redesign, the
sky bridges were all but obsolete or
have been removed, and the contri-
bution of skyline park to downtown
amenity space was being debated. This
reflects a deeper reshaping of space in
contemporary downtown Denver based
on historic building preservation and
adaptation, along with entertainment
and ‘fun’ shopping (Fig. 4).
Public and private sector interest in
21
See DRCOG and Regional Transportation
District (2001) 2000 Off street parking cost
and supply report.
22
For more information on the Denver
Urban Renewal Authority see An Urban
Kaleidoscope – 2000 Status Report of
DURA.
23
A fuller analysis of the Skyline project is
set out in Goodstein, P (1999) op cit. pp
276–299.

Figure 3 Skyline Park
Figure 4 People clustering venues in downtown Denver
Denver’s legacy of late 19th and early
20th century architecture has moved on
from the creation of Larimer Square in
the mid 1960s as a solitary oasis of
refurbished historic buildings within
the modernism of the Skyline Project,
to recognise the distinctive character
and business potential of Lower Down-
town comprising the vicinity of Union
Station. This former run-down area of
cheap lodging, factories, warehouses
and bars in the shadow of railway
viaducts has witnessed increasing
gentrification since the early 1990s. It
was branded with the title ‘LoDo’ and
re-imaged as a Victorian style enclave
City profile: Michael Murray
by new street lighting, signage, street
furniture and historic building markers
(Fig. 5). The construction of a citizen
funded stadium (Coors Field) for a new
franchise entry to Major League Base-
ball (Fig. 6) has added momentum to
business start-ups, especially res-
taurants and bars, while the glamour of
downtown living is earnestly promoted
by the building industry through exten-
sive apartment developments and loft
conversions.
Elsewhere within Downtown and its
periphery a suite of high profile, people
clustering projects (Table 1) underlines
the strong political and business com-
mitment to the revitalisation of
Denver’s central core. The realisation
of this “flagship” infrastructure has
involved the allocation of public funds,
at times in contested processes con-
cerning their expected benefits, and
which critics have cited as nothing
more than subsidised private profit.
Nevertheless, the collective impact of
mega-projects on restructuring a sense
of place around people and vitality can-
not be dismissed. A good illustration is
the transformation of 16th Street into a
central spine of pedestrian activity ser-
viced by a free shuttle bus along its
length (Fig. 7). This initiative, dating
from the 1970s, comprises a tree lined
and paved boulevard with seating,
fountains and artwork, fringed at street
level by a combination of restaurants,
convenience shops for adjacent office
workers and tourist related outlets. For
much of the intervening period the vis-
ual and functional coherence of this
streetscape was substantially reduced
by a combination of vacant buildings
caused by the closure of traditional
department stores and car park lots. In
the evenings the mall was almost
devoid of activity. But in 1992 property
owners came together to support the
establishment of the Downtown Denver
Business Improvement District
(BID).24 Annual assessments now fund
a series of measures including cleaning
and maintenance efforts, consumer
marketing campaigns, special entertain-
ment events, Christmas decorations,
capital improvements and local polic-
ing. Expenditure in 2000, for example,
was over $2.3 million. The longstand-
ing primary focus of this collective
effort is 16th street mall where recent
infill developments have consolidated
the impact of this economic develop-
ment work. These include the architec-
turally impressive Denver Pavilions
anchored by a new cinema complex
and international multiples such as
Hard Rock Café, Virgin Records and
Nike Town. This 350,000 square feet
urban entertainment/retail centre
opened in 1998 at a cost of $101m.
It is interesting to note that the
Downtown Denver Partnership, in its
role as the strategic driver of business
24
Downtown Denver Business Improvement
District (2000) BID Annual Review.
289
 City profile: Michael Murray
assumption of consumerism as the
defining element in contemporary
social identity.

Transportation
Mobility within the Denver metropoli-
tan region remains wedded to the use
of the motor vehicle and not surpris-
ingly, in the context of rapid population
growth during the 1990s, has resulted
in travel demand exceeding the
capacity of many parts of the highway
system. Travel survey data (DRCOG,
2000) underline the scale of the prob-
lems being faced during a typical
weekday, for example:
Figure 5 LoDo
앫 over 88% of all trips were made in
motor vehicles;
앫 the afternoon rush hour extends to
almost three hours;
앫 60% of Denver Central Business
District workers drove to work
alone;
앫 84% of workers in the suburban
areas drove alone;
앫 4% of the total household popu-
lation used public transport.

The consequent impact expresses

Figure 6 History of Baseball Arch, Coors Field
growth, has adopted the vision of an
‘interactive’ Downtown. William Why-
te’s assertion “What attracts people
most, it would appear, is other people”
in his book The Social Life of Small
Urban Spaces, is cited by the Partner-
ship25 as an appropriate explication of
that vision. The ongoing revitalisation
of Downtown Denver is inextricably
rooted in that perspective, but this in
turn raises the more fundamental issue
of how citizens are perceived. Down-
town Denver supports a market view of
the citizen which is premised on an
itself in weekday pervasive and sever-
ely congested roadway segments,26
especially along Interstate 25 to the
south of the city centre, increasing
traffic accidents and reduced air qual-
ity. A brown tinted haze frequently
masks the snow covered Rocky Moun-
tains in winter and is visual proof of
that pollution. Evidence from a world
26
Pervasive severe congestion is defined as
volume to capacity ratios over 0.95 for 3
hours or more in one direction.

Table 1 People clustering projects in the Denver downtown area

Project Function Date of opening Estimated cost

Invesco Field At Mile High Football stadium 2001 $400m

Pepsi Centre Multi-purpose indoor arena 1999 $180m
Colorado’s Ocean Journal Aquarium 1999 $93m
Coors Field Baseball stadium 1995 $215m
Denver Public Library Library Expanded 1995 $65m
Elitch Gardens Amusement park 1995 $118m
Denver Performing Arts Complex Theatres and concert hall Expanded 1991 $34m
Colorado Convention Centre Exhibitions 1990 $126m
Denver Art Museum Art gallery Renovated 1990 $9.3m

25
Downtown Denver Partnership (2001)
Annual Review: The Interactive Downtown.

290
 City profile: Michael Murray
survey of energy use in cities suggests
a strong inverse relationship between
population density, job density and city
centre dominance with petrol consump-
tion. It is not surprising, therefore, that
an analysis of petrol use per capita ver-
sus urban population density should
place Denver close to the top of the
curve below only Houston, Phoenix
and Detroit, but above other US cities
such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New
York. Clusters of Australian and Euro-
pean cities were well down the graph
(Newman and Kenworth, 1989).
While road based solutions continue
to dominate the policy landscape, there
Figure 7 16th Street Mall shuttle bus has been a belated but necessary recog-
nition of the need for multi-modal
initiatives, not least investment in rapid
transit technology. In 1994 the regional
authority with responsibility for public
transport completed a five mile Central
Line light rail project, followed in 2000
by a nine mile Southwest Line, thus
making Denver one of only 19 cities in
the US with this type of transit system
(Figs. 8 and 9). Further expansion is set
to continue in line with the Fiscally
Constrained Regional Transportation
Plan for 2020 prepared by DRCOG in
its role as the designated Metropolitan
Transportation Planning Organisation.
One such scheme is the $1.67 billion
Transportation Expansion Project
(referred to locally as T-Rex), which
will combine highway improvements
with the construction of a light rail
transit system in a corridor through
Figure 8 Light rail transit south east Denver. It is scheduled for
completion by 2008. But even with that
investment, provision across Denver
will remain piecemeal and a campaign
has commenced for light rail in depth.
This proposal, dubbed “Fastracks”,
calls for the build-out of a public transit
system through the six major transpor-
tation corridors of the metropolitan
area, but will require State Legislature
approval to allow the Regional Trans-
portation District to ballot voters on a
sales tax increase to fund the $4 billion
scheme. That permission has been ref-
used in the past and illustrates once
again the real tension between sus-
tainability and politics in Colorado.
The integration of transportation
with physical development remains,
however, a crucial issue for shaping the
future morphology of Denver in a more
Figure 9 Riverfront Park and new light rail under construction sustainable fashion. The City and

291

County of Denver, as a follow on to its
Comprehensive Plan 2000, is seeking
to respond to this challenge by prepar-
ing an integrated Land Use and Trans-
portation Plan which aims to ‘balance
growth with livability’. It was pub-
lished in draft form in September 2001
under the title Blueprint Denver. At a
strategic scale this has involved the
identification of areas of stability and
areas of change. The latter are
especially significant (Fig. 10) and
encompass tracts of land with obsolete
uses (for example, industrial areas to
the north and south of Downtown and
former facilities such as Stapleton and
Lowry airfields), green field opport-
unities (for example, Gateway, on lands
adjacent to the new Denver Inter-
national Airport), and transit oriented
development (TOD) close to light rail
transit stations. The attention being
given to TOD is evidence of progress-
ive thinking, with each node set to
comprise a mixture of housing and
neighbourhood businesses gathered
around a walk-in transit station. But the
extent to which this planning effort can
interact at a wider regional level with
travel demand management comprising
a combination of reduced single occu-
Figure 10 Key development areas in City of Denver. Source: adapted from Denver Comprehensive Plan, 2000
292
City profile: Michael Murray
pant vehicle trips and trip reduction
strategies, will remain a crucial con-
sideration in Denver’s mobility debate.
No account of transportation in
Denver would be complete without
brief mention of Denver International
Airport (DIA) which opened in Febru-
ary 1995. The bold design of the main
terminal building to mirror a combi-
nation of aircraft fuselages and the
snow covered Rocky Mountains is very
much an architectural signature for
contemporary Denver. But yet the
entire project from its inception in the
mid 1980s was not without controversy
and criticism (Dempsey et al., 1997;
Goodstein, 2000). It is identified as
being very much the legacy of Mayor
Federico Pena who subsequently rose
to the position of US Secretary of
Transportation in the Clinton Adminis-
tration. While opponents argued against
its necessity on the basis of cost and
the opportunity to expand the Stapleton
airport on to vacant land at the adjacent
Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the booster-
ism associated with the need to re-
image Denver in the aftermath of the
1980s oil collapse prompted voters to
support the project by a margin of two
to one. The $5 billion facility, initially
condemned by the publicity of contract
investigations and its fault-ridden auto-
mated luggage delivery system, was
handling more than 38 million passen-
gers annually in its first few years,
making it the sixth busiest airport in the
country (Weiss, 2000). In terms of
physical development (DIA) has con-
siderably extended the footprint of the
city into the eastern plains and created
further scope for business development
on the Gateway lands adjacent to the
lengthy airport access road off Inter-
state 70.
Brownfield development
The concept of sustainability brings
with it a preference for greater
efficiency in the use of natural
resources, not least land. In this regard,
attention now focuses on the re-use of
sites associated with abandoned or
under-utilised industrial and commer-
cial facilities. This phenomenon of
brownfield development is very much
a part of the contemporary physical re-
shaping of Denver and has required a
partnership approach between federal
bodies, local agencies and the private
sector.
The United States Environmental

Protection Agency has been especially
active on this front through its Office
of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response and since 1995 has provided
grant aid to municipalities for Brown-
fields Assessment Demonstration Pro-
jects. Each project receives funding up
to $200, 000 over two years to facilitate
site assessment, environmental clean-
up and redevelopment. A total of seven
projects are receiving support in the
Denver city region aimed eventually at
bringing contaminated land back into
beneficial use to include enterprise and
recreation. In Arvada, for example, an
area of just over 1000 acres, with a his-
tory of mixed uses, is scheduled to
become a business park and open space
corridor, complete with a park and
environmental interpretative centre. At
the other end of the scale another clean-
up project is dealing with some 2500
acres of the former Stapleton Airport
(discussed more fully below) and 640
acres of the adjacent Rocky Mountain
Arsenal which has been affected by
groundwater industrial pollution.
Indeed it is noted in passing that one
of the running controversies in Denver
surrounds the alleged groundwater con-
tamination from a toxic waste landfill
site within the 65,000 acre Lowry
Bombing Range beyond the eastern
periphery of the city.27
The commitment to brownfield
development in Denver is marked by
three major schemes which individu-
ally seek to integrate housing choice,
employment and environment. These
comprise Stapleton, Lowry and Riv-
erfront Park, each of which has pro-
gressed beyond the master planning
stage and is currently under construc-
tion. A short description of these
initiatives is appropriate in this profile
because of their large scale, complexity
of implementation, and compatibility
with the broader concept of ‘smart
growth’.28
The Stapleton brownfield initiative,
located at the former city airport, is one
27
See articles by Eileen Welsome in
Westword, 12 April 2001, 19 April 2001 and
26 April 2001.
28
For a fuller discussion of Smart Growth
see, Downs, A (2001) What does Smart
Growth really mean? Planning, April, pp
20–25; see also: Lorentz, A and Shaw, K
(2000) Are you ready to bet on Smart
Growth? Planning, January, pp 5–9.
City profile: Michael Murray
of the largest urban development
schemes in the US, extending over a
total area of 4700 acres. The constitu-
ent elements are indeed impressive in
their scale: 12,000 new homes for
30,000 residents, 10 million square feet
of office space, five planned neighbour-
hood town centres and two regional
retail centres. More than 1100 acres
will be devoted to a variety of open
space provision, with connections
planned through to the adjacent 17,000
acres Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wild-
life Refuge to the north. Infrastructure
costs to cover transportation, utilities
and drainage, recreation and com-
munity facilities have been estimated at
just under $300 million (at 1994
prices). Planning for the future of the
Stapleton property commenced in 1989
and on the basis of a large scale com-
munity effort known as “Stapleton
Tomorrow”, a concept plan for re-use
was produced in 1991 and subsequently
adopted by the City Council. A more
detailed physical development plan fol-
lowed in 1995 to guide implemen-
tation.29 This is being led by the Staple-
ton Redevelopment Foundation
Partnership, working closely with the
City and County of Denver and a 42
member Citizens Advisory Board. In
1999 Forest City was selected to be the
master developer, and following an
initial land purchase from the City,
commenced work on site in 2001.
The Lowry project on the other hand
is substantially further advanced fol-
lowing the closure of the 1800 acre US
Air Force Base in September 1994.
Through the efforts of the Lowry
Redevelopment Authority a master
plan was prepared and adopted jointly
by the Denver and Aurora City Coun-
cils in 1995. Infrastructure improve-
ments including runway demolition,
allowed new home construction to
commence in 1997 set against a target
of 4000 house completions by 2004. To
a much greater extent than at Stapleton,
the Lowry project is promoted through
the imagery of history and nostalgia.
Aircraft hangars have been retained and
are occupied by Colorado’s official air
29
See, Stapleton Development Plan prepared
by Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation,
City and County of Denver, and Citizens
Advisory Board, 1995 and reprinted by For-
est City Development in November 1999.
and space museum. Would be residents
are invited to “live the legend of the
air” or to recall and celebrate “Glory
days”.
Finally, at Riverfront Park the devel-
opment industry is transforming a 50
acre area of former railway yards
between Denver Union Station and the
South Platte River into high density
accommodation (2000 + units), offices
and retail provision. The proximity of
Downtown, and LoDo in particular,
underlines the strategic significance of
this site which will be given further
profile by the imminent completion of
a multi-modal transportation facility at
Union Station, to include an extension
of the Light Rail Transit system (Fig.
9).
A number of characteristics are
shared by these brownfield projects.
First, is the important contribution of
master planning to bring forward for
agreement a mixed land use profile
which encompasses housing, employ-
ment and recreation. Second, the devel-
opment role of the private sector is
respected, but the solid underpinning of
partnership based public authority sup-
port remains vital. Thus, for example,
DURA will use tax increment financ-
ing30 to reimburse physical and social
infrastructure costs to developers. And
third, in each instance there is a high
commitment to achieving quality in
public realm provision, which extends
from extensive and interconnected rec-
reational open space, to townscape
design and public art. These three pro-
jects have been driven by a commit-
ment to new urbanism and sustainable
development and stand in marked con-
trast to the peripheral sprawl discussed
earlier in this paper.
Conclusion
This profile of Denver evidences a suite
of tensions between the promise and
30
Tax increment financing allows urban
renewal authorities such as DURA to use
the new tax revenues generated by a
redevelopment project to provide a portion
of the project’s financing. These must pay
for infrastructure and related public
improvements usually through the issue of
bonds or developer reimbursement. TIF has
been used to invest in, for example, Denver
Pavilions and Six Flags Elitch Gardens in
the Downtown Denver area.
293

outcomes of urban planning with wider
applicability. On the one hand, there is
a contemporary language which
embraces regional governance, growth
management, economic vitality and
quality infrastructure. But on the other
hand, there is the reality of city sprawl,
competitive local government relation-
ships, and a convergence of interest
between citizen choice and develop-
ment industry behaviour. The trans-
formation of Denver during the 1990s
has fuelled the emergence of ballot-box
planning, has highlighted as never
before the importance of strong polit-
ical leadership in dealing with complex
issues of rights and values, and has
called on planning professionals to take
a visible stance in policy debates. How
Denver shapes up to these contradic-
tions and tensions will profoundly
determine progress towards its vision
for the future.
Acknowledgements
The insights offered on contemporary
Denver by those many public officials
294
City profile: Michael Murray
with whom I have visited are deeply
appreciated. I also extend a special
thanks to Michael, Linda, Rory and
Ryan McGrenaghan for the warmth of
their hospitality over many years while
undertaking research in Colorado.
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