After years of sprawl, Denver get dense finally

[spuwho]

After years of growing sprawl, Denver finally made the decision to embrace TOD. The result? Economic growth through density.  Perhaps something Jacksonville should emulate?

The Atlantic reports:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/03/after-decades-sprawl-density-comes-denver/5088/



Last week transportation officials in Denver made a trial run of the new West Rail Line â€" a 12-mile, $707 million light rail line expected to serve some 20,000 riders a day. The "W" line holds great promise for Denver's western corridor (except, perhaps, for too much emphasis on park-and-ride facilities), but it has even greater significance for the city at large. It's the first rail line to be finished of the massive "FasTracks" regional transit program that's set to reshape the entire metropolitan area.

FasTracks is a multi-billion dollar regional plan financed by a 4-cent sales tax approved by voters 57-43 back in 2004. The program aims to expand transit service in three existing corridors, create new service in six other corridors, and develop Denver's Union Station into a multi-modal regional transportation hub. (It also wants to maintain transportation equity.) But FasTracks is more than a transit plan: it's also a land use initiative with an intense focus on transit-oriented development and an ultimate goal of transforming Denver into a more sustainable city.

So far it's doing just that. In a recent special issue of the journal Cities, geographers Keith Ratner of Salem State University and Andrew Goetz of the University of Denver report that transit-oriented development in the FasTracks era has already had a measurable effect on the character of the city. After analyzing TOD data from around the city, Ratner and Goetz conclude that increased density near transit stations â€" one of the primary objectives of the regional plan â€" is "clearly evident":

While Denver still remains a relatively low density city that relies heavily on the automobile and highway transportation, there has nevertheless been a clear change in regional policy that is encouraging more transit and higher-density transit-oriented development and that change in policy is having a recognizable impact on Denver’s land use and urban form.
Denver's recent success is encouraging for all U.S. metros, largely because the city followed a typical path in the 20th century. During a period of intense sprawl and transit failure, between 1950 and 1990, the city's population density shrank from 4,741 people per square mile to 3,309. Since reversing course in the mid-'90s, however, density is back around 4,000 people per square mile.

Ratner and Goetz attribute much of that change to a successful TOD campaign that focused on five key goals: placing homes, jobs, and retail near transit; creating a mixture of transportation, housing, and shopping options; capturing some of the business value of transit for the city; emphasizing "place-making" strategies; and ensuring that transit stations were entry portals to a truly regional network. From 2000 to 2010, T.O.D. development made up a considerable chunk of all regional development (9 percent of all residential growth, 11 percent of retail, 15 percent of office).

All told, Denver has created some 18,000 residential units, 5.3 million square feet of retail, and 5.4 million square feet of office space within a half mile of transit station, Ratner and Goetz report.

As a result, the transit zones have much greater population and household densities than they did just a decade back. The average population density (below) within a half-mile of transit stations is now six times greater than the density in the rest of the region (with density downtown doing even better and doubling the average). Household density near transit stations, meanwhile, is nearly nine times greater than the regional average (with downtown again more than twice as dense still).

Now the Denver metro area as a whole still has some ways to go. While 43 percent of downtown commuters now take transit, far exceeding national averages, three-quarters of people in the metro area at large still commute by driving alone, which is no better than the national pace. Meanwhile, sprawl continues to pull at the edges of the city, which is expected to measure 1,106 square miles in 2035 â€" beyond a boundary set by its regional plan. Still the city's approach to smart growth, anchored by FasTracks, offers a working model for other cities to emulate.

[Ocklawaha]

There is at least one other thing at work in Denver, as well as Phoenix, Tucson, Portland, OKC etc.. Cities in the west have evolved differently then those in the east. In the west vast distances and extreme climate often separates people from goods and services. It's not unusual to see a small town with a population of only 1,000 persons, take on an appearance of a much larger place. Climatic conditions also tended to keep the cities more compact, usually with farms or ranch land right up to the edge of houses and businesses on 'in town' streets. Perhaps this will illustrate.


Seligman, AZ, Population 450


Lawty, FL, Population 650

It would be interesting to do a study of this and see what each model must overcome especially when you take it up to the large scale cities.

[thelakelander]

^The typical layout of a city depends more on the age of the community and its immediate landscape than the region of the country it is located in. For example, New Orleans and Miami are every bit as dense as most western and northern cities. Same goes for the historic cores of Richmond, Savannah and Charleston. However, Raleigh, Orlando and Atlanta are sprawlbugs.
Looking at the Lawty and Seligman examples, the aerials you posted aren't the same scale.  Here's these two communities at the same scale:



At the same scale, Seligman has a denser street grid and covers more land area (6.4 miles to 1.4 miles) but Lawty has a higher population.  Without doing too much research, I can only guess that Seligman was much larger in the age before cars, while Lawty has been more successful as sustaining its population. Nevertheless, you can tell a lot about the layout of these places from the aerial.  The original town of Lawty is pretty boxed in by wetlands. Both appear to have significantly declined over the last century.

[Ocklawaha]

I used the different scales because of the trees it is hard to see that Lawty is almost as big outside of the 'town limits' as it is within. If the map you posted is enlarged you'll see 24Th-30Th Avenues are completely outside the corporate limits. You rarely see this in organic western towns, IE: very few have 'burbs,' unless we're talking about a Denver or Phoenix type of place. In the organic small town, it seems much better defined in the west.

Oh and yes, Seligman was the heart of Route 66, (Think Radiator Springs) as well as a division point and junction on the old Santa Fe Railroad mainline. Today (as in 'Radiator Springs) the cars and trains speed by seldom noticing what they have missed.

[thelakelander]

I used the different scales because of the trees it is hard to see that Lawty is almost as big outside of the 'town limits' as it is within.

The area outside of Lawty's limits isn't Lawty and wouldn't be used in it's population count.  Also, the CDP land area used for Seligman's population numbers are much larger than what's shown in both aerials we posted.

You rarely see this in organic western towns, IE: very few have 'burbs,' unless we're talking about a Denver or Phoenix type of place. In the organic small town, it seems much better defined in the west.

From what I can tell, western cities still growing tend to sprawl as well but like South Florida it's more compact than typical sprawl in the Midwest and South.  In Seligman's situation, it doesn't sprawl because it appears it's best days died when I-40 was constructed, siphoning traffic from Route 66.  Also, I'm not sure I'd call the development outside of Lawty sprawl.   It appears to be primarily agricultural based.  For the most part, these are uses that are probably just as old as Lawty itself.

[spuwho]

A huge difference in the contrasts is access to a critical resource:

Water

Seligman, AZ is heavily dependent on a civic water distribution capability as most people cannot afford to drill wells deep enough.

Lawty, FL can distribute itself more freely because if you don't want to have access to "city water" then you can drill your own shallow well outside the city limits.

Florida sprawl will slow down when they begin to lose ready (cheap) access to this key resource. It's already showing up in central parts of the state near the Ocala Ridge.

[vicupstate]

Very interesting read that covers a multitude of the typical MJ transit topics. Huge endorsement for Light Rail for starters ...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/what-works-denver-rail-system-growth-213905

All the cities and towns in the nine-county region agreed not to poach jobs and businesses from one another, but rather to work together within Clark's economic development corporation to attract opportunities to the region or push for major collective investments like a proper transit system or a new airport to replace the aging Stapleton Airport. "The idea was that as we work together, everyone will get their fair share in the long run and collectively we'll all gain by making the pie bigger,"

Second, an army of critics insisted rail was a dead letter. "They loudly proclaimed that Colorado was not New York or Philadelphia or Boston, where people embraced and used mass transit; this was Colorado, where the car was king and transit was an unacceptable alternative,"  "They eagerly awaited the opening of this 'boondoggle' so that they could verify their predictions of empty rail cars and empty parking lots."

"Ridership was off the charts almost immediately, and within five years it had quadrupled our original projections,"

all the funded lines will be up and running by 2018, yielding a system of 77 stations and 114 miles of track in all.

[spuwho]

I agree that there are parallels but the differentiator is the fact they were all willing to cooperate.

Not the case with JTA and Duval in general.

When we reach a cooperative stage then yes, I can see these things happening, but until then its still every developer to themself.

[vicupstate]

I agree that there are parallels but the differentiator is the fact they were all willing to cooperate.

Not the case with JTA and Duval in general.

When we reach a cooperative stage then yes, I can see these things happening, but until then its still every developer to themself.

Jacksonville has the advantage that very very few Metro areas have, of having 75% of it's Metro population under control of just ONE government.  This is a huge advantage that seems to be pilfered away somehow.  It should be a lot easier to get area wide cooperation here (on anything),  yet it seems to never happen because of weak leadership. 

[ronchamblin]

I agree that there are parallels but the differentiator is the fact they were all willing to cooperate.

Not the case with JTA and Duval in general.

When we reach a cooperative stage then yes, I can see these things happening, but until then its still every developer to themself.

Spuwho ...the idea of a "cooperative stage" ...and your comment "they were willing to cooperate"....  I suppose that's another way of saying "everybody's on the same page", or "all recognize the same goal". And "they" and "everybody" and "all" are the various entities having the potential to not only cooperate, but to affect positively a journey to goal.

If we are to assume that post war (II) found Denver and Jax on similar journeys through sprawl, with the resultant core abandonment, and if we were to perceive the fact that Denver has made significant strides toward increased density, whereas Jax has not, then we might wonder why success is with Denver, and not with Jax. 

Although there might be variables not apparent, which might offer some cause for the differing achievements, I find myself believing that the success rumored in Denver occurred primarily because of strong leadership from one individual ... or perhaps from two or three working together.

Whereas strong leadership, especially regarding a goal such as core revitalization, is expected in a mayor, it can emerge peripherally ... from anyone who has a vision as to solution, the determination to realize, and the voice to convey it. 

We've all heard that the great oak sleeps in the acorn.  An idea is similar to the acorn, each having an essence for growth within.  In both, growth to fruition only requires time and the mechanism of nature.  Whereas the seeming simplicity and focus of nature encourages the acorn to the oak, ideas and goals must engage a world of diversions and often formidable obstacles ... complexities to be overcome only by extreme focus and relentless determination.

Our mayor, although suggesting the goal of core vibrancy, seems, perhaps of necessity, to be temporarily without focus upon it.  This is understandable, as the first months in office not only requires energy to select and form a team, but one must survey the battlefield.  And the urgent need for solution of the critical pension issue was addressed before any real progress was possible toward actually funding a serious push to core revitalization.

Leadership ... strong and relentless ... focused on serious and critical issues ....

Onward ...

[thelakelander]

I agree that there are parallels but the differentiator is the fact they were all willing to cooperate.

Not the case with JTA and Duval in general.

When we reach a cooperative stage then yes, I can see these things happening, but until then its still every developer to themself.

Jacksonville has the advantage that very very few Metro areas have, of having 75% of it's Metro population under control of just ONE government.  This is a huge advantage that seems to be pilfered away somehow.  It should be a lot easier to get area wide cooperation here (on anything),  yet it seems to never happen because of weak leadership. 

In your opinion, why does it seem that consolidated cities like Nashville and Indianapolis or even sprawling places like Houston, Oklahoma City, San Diego and Charlotte tend to get area wide cooperation? Is it totally good verses bad leadership?

[Tacachale]

I agree that there are parallels but the differentiator is the fact they were all willing to cooperate.

Not the case with JTA and Duval in general.

When we reach a cooperative stage then yes, I can see these things happening, but until then its still every developer to themself.

Jacksonville has the advantage that very very few Metro areas have, of having 75% of it's Metro population under control of just ONE government.  This is a huge advantage that seems to be pilfered away somehow.  It should be a lot easier to get area wide cooperation here (on anything),  yet it seems to never happen because of weak leadership. 

In your opinion, why does it seem that consolidated cities like Nashville and Indianapolis or even sprawling places like Houston, Oklahoma City, San Diego and Charlotte tend to get area wide cooperation? Is it totally good verses bad leadership?

It's leadership. I don't know how all those other cities are run, but Jacksonville's system isn't exactly set up to put the best leaders in place, and keep them there, or to promote continuity from one administration to the next.

Anytime a city has large geographical boundaries there will be a struggle in the urban core due to having not only a large population, but people preferring very different lifestyles. In most of those cities there are urbanites as well as suburbanites as well as rural or exurban people. But in several of their cases they've benefited from leadership and vision.

In contrast to how we do things, Indianapolis doesn't have term limits, meaning they don't have nearly the turnover in leadership. Since 1968, all of their mayors except the guy that was just elected this year have served for at least 8 years, and one served 16 years. There are downsides to that, but it does make it easier to carry through a vision. In Jacksonville in the same amount, 3 of the last 7 mayors before Curry served only one term. On the other hand, the reason we have term limits is that people were sick of what happened under 2 different mayors who served 16 years or more, so we come by it honestly.

Charlotte, on the other hand, has a city manager who's in charge of carrying out policy decisions by the Mayor and City Council. The position is much less political and more managerial. Of course it has its downsides too.

San Diego seems to have basically the same government structure we do. They're also facing a lot of the same problems we have, including a pension crisis and serial incompetence, but turned up to 11. They've had several mayors recalled for various reasons, including Bob Filner, who was found guilty of serial sexual harassment. Whatever good things have happened in San Diego, I imagine it's not because of the mayors.

[goldy21]

And now the long-awaited train from the airport to downtown is running.  Here's a great article from Politico on Denver's rail transit system:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/what-works-denver-rail-system-growth-213905

[spuwho]

And now the long-awaited train from the airport to downtown is running.  Here's a great article from Politico on Denver's rail transit system:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/what-works-denver-rail-system-growth-213905

Good example of regional cooperation with a common goal.

Suburbs, exurbs realized that the health of their town was dependent on the health of downtown Denver, and so off it went.

While consolidation offers quicker decision making at times, it also means things are more easily changed. When Denver had their consortium together, it was very hard for one wildcat to disrupt it.

In COJ, all it takes is one councilman and one lobbyist and a long range plan can be upended and ursurped.

The power of consolidation can also be its weakness.

[simms3]

Denver is progressive in the way it handles government.  RTD (Regional Transportation District) is their JTA, and you can tell just by its name that it is for the region.

Denver also sets up very successful Metropolitan Districts which are similar to BIDs or CIDs.  Denver Union Station and Central Platte Valley are two nearly overlapping districts that handle the blocks immediately around DUS (the actual Union Station/platform) and the Riverfront Park district (adjacent to DUS, along the Platte River), which was mainly developed in the decade prior.

I had the pleasure of working on the Denver Union Station project and partnering with a member of the Master Development team to put up 5 buildings.  Denver gets a lot of things right and there are a lot of smart people there.