URBAN MIGHT

Are the West’s Biggest Issues in the Region’s Cities?

By Headwaters News, 4-30-07

Open space, wild places and vast, undeveloped landscapes may be what makes our region unique, but our citizens are primarily city dwellers. According to the 2007 State of the Rockies Report (pdf), issued in early April, in 2000, 83 percent of Rockies residents lived in urban areas. That’s higher than the 79 percent national average. So, while public lands management and wildlife may sometimes steal the show, urban issues are perhaps just as pressing, if not more so. 

Several recent stories on Headwaters News offer a glimpse into some of those issues.

In Denver, about 40 architects, developers, financiers, lawyers, neighborhood activists, business owners and city officials are wrapping up the final details of their 20-year Denver Downtown Area Plan. The plan, which developers say mixes realism with idealism, calls for the clean up of side streets, redevelopment of parts of downtown and Union Station, connecting the Aurora campus with the city center and the development of Arapahoe Square. The developers admit the plan is an audacious one, but they’re confident it will pass the city council when they present it on Thursday for approval.

Also in Denver, a dwindling supply of apartments is causing a renewed push to build apartment complexes, and many of those are sprouting up around recently built light rail stations.

Two cities, Albuquerque, N.M., and Butte, Mont., are both seeing an upswing in commercial real estate. Albuquerque has one of the tightest commercial real estate markets in the country while Butte, a former booming mining city that in recent decades has been depressed, is showing signs of a strong resurgence, not just in commercial real estate, but in residential real estate and development as well.

In Nevada, the problems swing the other way, as that state now leads the nation (as Colorado did not long ago) in foreclosures. The sub-prime mortgage industry has taken a lot of flack lately for helping to cause so many foreclosures, but in Las Vegas, the problem stems from over-anxious “flippers” — people who bought homes in anticipation of reselling them quickly for a profit.

The problem arose when the market softened, and people with no intention of keeping the house were suddenly burdened with a mortgage worth more than the home.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.