Denver’s boom could be mayor’s bust
The election will be a referendum on this city’s growing pains
A fter a decade of slow growth through the dotcom bust and the Great Recession, Denver’s population growth since 2012 has exploded. In the last seven years, the city has grown by 100,000 residents, and it’s noticeable on congested roads, in crowded restaurants, in gentrifying neighborhoods, and in cranes working overtime in the city’s development hotspots.
The upcoming Denver mayoral election on May 7, 2019, has become dramatized by tensions caused by urban growth. If Mayor Michael Hancock’s challengers force a runoff (a dozen candidates have joined the race at last count), it will be largely because of the political disruption of Denver’s surging population boom.
In this election, the complaints about Denver’s growth aren’t just based on crowding and traffic, but also on social equity. Hancock’s opponents argue the city’s growth policies, or lack of them, are causing social injustice. Gentrification has dislodged longtime homeowners and stable neighborhoods. The increase in homelessness is not being addressed adequately, rising housing costs cause current homeowners to pay higher taxes with limited resources and, of course, housing is too expensive for many millennials and others. And, there’s the common class warfare language denigrating developers and others getting rich off the growth — especially due to the city’s focus on massive legacy projects, such as the Stock Show, Convention Center and DIA.
But, whether the challenge to Hancock is framed along quality of life or social justice issues, it’s Denver’s surging growth that has motivated the large field of candidates. And indeed, the city’s recent rate of growth has exceeded the state’s growth rate, which was just reported as the seventh fastest growing state in the nation.
Growth always produces complaints, but they are often met with praise for a booming economy. Denver has a quarter of the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and below 4 percent unemployment. The growth also enhances Denver’s political clout as its voters alone provided nearly a fifth of the statewide vote for new
Gov. Jared Polis.
Denver’s boom is exceptional for a core city. While many old cities of the East and Midwest, such as Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit, continue to bleed population and jobs, Denver gained population the last decade. As Colorado adds a congressional seat, largely due to its metro area growth, seats were lost in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
In fact, Denver leadership for years has argued that quality of life and social equity requires good jobs and a healthy tax base. Denver’s growth and prosperity is a reversal of nearly two decades of decline during the 1970s and 1980s. While Americans moved en masse to the suburbs, Denver dealt with the social and economic problems of poverty, crime and the disruption of busing. Jefferson and Arapahoe counties surged during this period (Jeffco up 61 percent from 1970 to 1980).
But beginning in the mid-1980s, Denver was able to reverse the flow, partially with strong public and civic leadership starting during Mayor Federico Peña’s administration, followed by mayors Wellington Webb and John Hickenlooper, all dedicated to business and civic partnerships and smart growth.
From the move of the old Stapleton airport to DIA, redevelopment of Lowry and the Central Platte, adding a baseball stadium downtown, and new and refurbished cultural institutions, the accomplishments have been extraordinary. These and other growth generating policies were not without controversy and political pushback, but Denver’s vulnerability to stagnation and the need for economic generators were always in the foreground.
The challenge today for Denver’s political and business leadership is to accommodate the complaints about growth without damaging the city’s spectacular economy or restricting new residential housing — which typically pushes up the cost of living and housing.
The 2019 election will be the stage that either leaves the establishment to meld growth to new political realities or brings in a new cast ready for a much more aggressive script.