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Suburban Sprawl or Urban Centres:
Tensions and Contradictions of Smart
Growth Approaches in Denver, Colorado
Andrew Goetz
[Paper first received, November 2010; in final form, November 2011]
Abstract
During the post-war era in the United States, the low-density suburban sprawl
model has been the dominant paradigm of urban growth. In recognition of the sig-
nificant economic, social and environmental costs of sprawl, a new smart growth
paradigm of higher-density, mixed-use and transit-oriented urban centres has
emerged in many metropolitan areas. A case study of Denver, Colorado, shows that
the smart growth approach has been more effective than previous initiatives to
change the development pattern and address the costs of sprawl. With many new
urbanist projects and an aggressive transit-oriented development programme,
Denver is offering a different urban alternative to its sprawling past. A broader coali-
tion of support, especially including the development community, has characterised
smart growth efforts in contrast to previous growth control initiatives. New forms of
regional collaboration have contributed to a stronger regional identity, less jurisdic-
tional infighting and greater consensus on issues of regional importance.
Introduction
Contemporary urban development in the
United States and, to some extent, the rest of
the world, is torn between two paradigms.
On the one hand, post-1950-style suburba-
nisation and exurbanisation, facilitated by
increasing automobile use and expanded
highway systems, continue to be a dominant
paradigm, as measured by increasing urban
land cover, vehicle miles travelled and new
edge-city developments on the urban fringe.
Yet at the same time, there has been a surge
of interest in sustainable urban growth, fea-
turing concepts such as smart growth, new
urbanism, growth management, affordable
housing, infill and transit-oriented develop-
ment, and urban growth boundaries. Many
cities and metropolitan areas have adopted
plans and policies that espouse one or more
Andrew Goetz is in the Department of Geography, University of Denver, 2050 East Iliff Avenue,
Denver, Colorado, 80208, USA. Email: agoetz@du.edu.
Urban Studies at 50
Special Issue Article 50(11) 2178–2195, August 2013
0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online
Ó2013 Urban Studies Journal Limited
DOI: 10.1177/0042098013478238
of these aspirational visions for the city of
the future.
Following the work of Burchell et al.
(2000), one of the main arguments of this
paper is that the smart growth movement of
the 1990s and 2000s has been ‘‘more than a
ghost of urban policy past’’ because it has
been able to deliver more tangible results to
limit sprawl and encourage infill develop-
ment than previous efforts, such as the growth
control and growth management initiatives of
the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The smart growth
movement has been more effective because a
broader coalition, including large segments of
governments at all levels, the public-at-large
and especially the development community,
has embraced and supported the concept. In
fact, Gearin (2004) referred to this broad
coalition as a ‘‘smart growth machine’’. This
broader coalition has emerged within the
framework of a more widespread acceptance
of neoliberal approaches to urban develop-
ment (Krueger and Gibbs, 2008) and the
emergence of ‘‘new regionalist’’ strategies to
forge wider and stronger regional policy con-
sensus (Goetz et al., 2011; Jonas and Pincetl,
2006). While the previous growth control and
growth management approaches tended to be
more confrontational to the traditional devel-
opment community, the smart growth move-
ment has relied on new non-traditional
coalitions of business, government and citizen
groups that truly believe in the merits of an
alternative urban development model. The
neoliberal turn in the wider political economy
within the US since the 1980s has created an
environment wherein it has been necessary for
smart growth objectives to be achieved
through public–private coalitions rather than
confrontation. In some places, the local smart
growth agenda is actually driven by the busi-
ness community in the form of area chambers
of commerce and ‘new regional’ collabora-
tions. Moreover, there is broader recognition
across the public–private spectrum of the sig-
nificant economic, social and environmental
costs of low-density suburban sprawl and a
stronger desire to create more sustainable
urbandesignalternatives.
At the same time, however, this paper
also acknowledges that the smart growth
movement has been something ‘less than a
bold new horizon’ because it bears some
similarities to previous anti-sprawl efforts
(that experienced mixed results) and it has
not resulted in a complete urban develop-
ment paradigm shift. Despite the smart
growth movement, there is a continuing
reliance on—and, among some population
groups, a preference for—the decades-long
investment in the low-density, automobile-
oriented suburban and exurban built envi-
ronment. Furthermore, not all segments of
government or the development commu-
nity have wholeheartedly embraced smart
growth, some perceiving it as an elegant
masquerade for draconian growth control
measures.
A number of large metropolitan regions
within the US are confronted by these con-
tradictory paradigms of urban growth. A
particularly good example of this conflict is
found in the Denver, Colorado, metropoli-
tan area which exhibits an historical legacy
as a sprawling ‘cow town’ at the same time
that it espouses an eco-friendly vision of
new urbanist developments and a growing
commitment to rail transit and transit-
oriented development. In 2004, metro-area
voters approved a 122-mile expansion of the
rail transit system as part of the Regional
Transportation District’s FasTracks pro-
gramme that laid the foundation for an
aggressive transit-oriented development ini-
tiative in the City and County of Denver and
other metro area jurisdictions. Yet despite
these efforts, the continued popularity of
very low-density 1–40-acre ‘ranchettes’ on
the urban fringe creates a mixed and contra-
dictory image of the Denver region.
The Denver case study is important
because it represents a significant effort by
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2179
a relatively large US metropolitan region to
change its urban growth trajectory from
continuing low-density sprawl to higher-
density, mixed-use and transit-oriented
urban centres. In recognition that the status
quo is neither desirable nor sustainable,
Denver has been able to forge a consensus
for action that can serve as a reference for
other metropolitan regions facing similar
issues.
Thus, the three main questions this paper
seeks to answer are
(1) What are the major accomplishments
of recent smart growth initiatives in
Denver?
(2) How have these accomplishments dif-
fered from previous efforts to address
the costs of sprawl in the 1960s, 1970s
and 1980s?
(3) How have approaches to foster regional
collaboration changed and to what
extent have these changes played a role
in the adoption of smart growth
initiatives?
This paper is organised as follows. After a
theoretical section discusses some of the
relevant themes and concepts that relate
directly to the objectives of this paper, a
case study of Denver’s experience with
growth control and smart growth is pre-
sented. A focus on post-1950s suburban
growth in Denver serves to provide the
context for the 1970s growth control move-
ment, which found fertile ground in the
Denver area. This period proved to be an
important precursor to the post-1990s
smart growth phase that has featured a new
metro vision, new redevelopment projects
and a new commitment to rail transit and
transit-oriented development. A concluding
section answers the three main questions of
this paper and uses the Denver case study
to explore larger issues related to the smart
growth movement.
Two Paradigms of Urban Growth
In his landmark book The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (1970)
laid out a framework for how progress in
science is achieved—i.e. from a system of
knowledge based on academic paradigms,
or ‘schools of thought’, that guide the
expansion and development of disciplinary
knowledge. Key moments in the history of
science occur when new paradigms emerge
as a result of one or more scientific break-
throughs that challenge existing epistemol-
ogies, theories or methodologies associated
with old paradigms. Depending on the field
of study, the transition from an old to a
new paradigm can occur quickly or can
take a considerable amount of time, partic-
ularly if advocates of the old paradigm are
resistant to accepting the new approach.
There may be an extended period of time
in which competing paradigms may co-
exist within an academic field, if these sev-
eral paradigms offer relevant frameworks to
pose intriguing questions and produce
useful results that provide better answers to
fundamental dilemmas.
The current situation in urban develop-
ment is not unlike the paradigm framework
in academic disciplines. The dominant
urban growth paradigm since at least 1945
1
in the US has been decentralised suburban
growth, characterised by low-density devel-
opment in newly urbanising areas on the
metropolitan fringe facilitated by automo-
biles and highway transport. Terms, models
and concepts such as multiple nuclei cities
(Harris and Ullman, 1945), Fordist suburbs
(Knox and McCarthy, 2005), urban realms
(Vance, 1977), the outer city (Muller, 1981),
the galactic metropolis (Lewis, 1983), sub-
urban downtowns (Hartshorn and Muller,
1989), edge cities (Garreau, 1991), the per-
ipheral city (Harris, 1997), splintering
urbanism (Graham and Marvin, 2001) and
edgeless cities (Lang, 2003) have all been
2180 ANDREW GOETZ
used to describe various aspects of the sub-
urbanisation process. The economic, politi-
cal, social, cultural and technological forces
that have combined to support suburban
development have been powerful and suc-
cessful in terms of profitability and popular
appeal. Numerous industries have benefited
tremendously from suburban growth and
the suburban population has enjoyed a sub-
stantial improvement in the quality of life as
compared with the pre-1945 period.
However, the individual quality-of-life
improvements associated with suburbanisa-
tion have come with increasing economic,
social and environmental costs due to the
sprawling nature of this development.
According to a report from Smart Growth
America, urban sprawl is defined as a pro-
cess whereby the spread of development
across the landscape far outpaces popula-
tion growth. Urban sprawl is characterised
by: widely dispersed population in low den-
sity development; rigidly separated residen-
tial, commercial and employment land uses;
a network of roads that creates huge blocks
and sub-divisions that limit accessibility;
and, a lack of town centres or major activity
nodes (Ewing et al., 2002). Studies have
shown that there are considerable costs
associated with urban sprawl including
higher energy costs, especially gasoline con-
sumption, higher levels of traffic conges-
tion, increased water consumption and the
need to provide additional infrastructure
(transport, electrical, water, sewer systems)
and public facilities (schools, fire, police,
libraries) to newly developed areas (Real
Estate Research Corporation, 1974; Barnett,
2007; Burchell et al., 2002; Newman and
Kenworthy, 1999; Farr, 2008). There are
also considerable environmental costs asso-
ciated with sprawling development includ-
ing increased greenhouse gas emissions, air
pollution, water pollution, flooding, noise,
erosion, loss of prime agricultural land, loss
of open space and wetlands, loss of scenic
amenities and habitat encroachment. Urban
sprawl has been implicated in declining
public health in the US as people who live in
counties with sprawl-style development have
higher rates of obesity and higher blood pres-
sure (McCann and Ewing, 2003; Plantinga
and Bernell, 2007; Raine et al., 2008).
In response to the realisation of the costs
of urban sprawl and limited alternatives to
suburban-style development, many city
planners, developers, architects and advo-
cacy groups have been espousing a ‘smart
growth’ approach to urbanisation. Relying
on concepts such as new urbanism, infill
development, affordable housing, historical
preservation, transit-oriented development
and urban growth boundaries, the main
thrust of the smart growth movement is to
encourage more high-density development
in already-urbanised areas that contain a
mix of land uses close enough together to
encourage more walking, biking and public
transit use. New urbanism, a leitmotif of
smart growth (Burchell et al., 2000), features
higher-density mixed-use neo-traditional
neighbourhoods with sidewalks and nar-
rower streets, and is viewed as a viable alter-
native to suburban sprawl, providing
residents and workers a greater choice of
lifestyle options that do not depend exclu-
sively on automobile use and long-distance
travel to access needed activities. It has been
estimated that the savings from a controlled
growth scenario as opposed to uncontolled
growth in the US for the period 2000–25
include 4 million acres saved from conver-
sion to urban land, $12.6 billion saved in
water and sewer infrastructure costs, $109.7
billion saved in road infrastructure costs
and 49.6 million daily vehicle miles not tra-
velled, which would result in substantially
improved air quality and significantly lower
greenhouse gas emissions (Burchell et al.,
2002).
In a seminal paper, Burchell et al. (2000)
analyse the smart growth movement in
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2181
contrast to previous urban policies and find
that, while it echoes previous efforts such as
urban renewal, inner-area revitalisation,
growth control and growth management, it
also emphasises newer approaches such as
new urbanist design innovations and a
much stronger commitment to multimodal
transport. The proponents of smart growth
have also been able to learn from previous
mistakes in urban policy, while a much
broader coalition, including large segments
of governments at all levels, the public-at-
large and the development community
have come together in support of smart
growth.
A distinguishing characteristic of smart
growth has been its acceptance and embrace
of neoliberal approaches to urban redeve-
lopment, featuring public–private partner-
ships and, in many cases, private-sector-led
development. Krueger and Gibbs (2008)
maintain that smart growth represents a
‘third wave’ of sustainability initiatives in
the US after the growth control efforts of
the 1960s and 1970s, and growth manage-
ment in the 1980s. While some growth con-
trol and growth management measures
were criticised for being ‘anti-business’,
many smart growth initiatives have expli-
citly included the business community.
Smart growth builds on, but is different
from, the previous waves, especially in its
emphasis on a market-based approach to
limit sprawl and encourage infill develop-
ment. Furthermore, the transition from
growth control to smart growth can be seen
as part of a broader shift in the American
political economy away from government
intervention and regulatory control towards
market solutions, deregulation and public–
private partnerships. This neoliberal turn
has contributed to creating an environment
wherein smart growth objectives have been
more easily achieved through increased
public–private collaboration rather than
confrontation.
Support for the smart growth movement
can also be explained by the rise of ‘new
regionalist’ approaches in urban develop-
ment (Basolo, 2003; Jonas and Ward, 2002;
Jonas and McCarthy, 2009; Pastor et al.,
2000). Eschewing the ‘top–down’ approach
of US federal policies in support of regional
governments and regional planning, the
new regionalism has emphasised a ‘bottom–
up’ approach, featuring informal networks
of local government, business and citizen
advocacy groups to forge coalitions in sup-
port of regional policies. Support for many
smart growth policies has been a product of
non-traditional new regionalist networks
(Scott, 2007).
There is some evidence that the recent
emphasis on smart growth policies is having
a measurable effect on urban form, land use
and transport patterns. Ingram et al. (2009)
compared four states that adopted strong
smart growth policies with four states that
did not, and found that the smart growth
states tended to experience more desirable
outcomes such as slower rates of develop-
ment deconcentration, lower loss of farm-
land, more transit use, lower levels of traffic
congestion and more development directed
to already-built-up areas. Gilbert and Perl
(2010) have shown that car ownership and
car use decline where settlement densities—
including both population and employment
densities—are higher. Results from a study
on compact growth and air quality (Stone
et al., 2007) suggested that a 10 per cent
increase in metropolitan area population
density is associated with a 3.5 per cent
decrease in household vehicle travel and
emissions. Yin and Sun (2007) found that
state growth management programmes
effectively promoted compact development
in terms of population density and land use
mixture, while Howell-Moroney (2007)
discovered that only those states with the
strongest growth management intensity,
defined as having mandatory comprehensive
2182 ANDREW GOETZ
planning and auxiliary policies aimed at
growth control, experienced consistent suc-
cess at reducing the expansion of urban land
and increasing population densities.
US cities are notorious for their automo-
bile dependency, high energy consumption
and high carbon emissions per capita
(Newman and Kenworthy, 1999), but many
of the largest US cities are trying to change
these patterns by starting new or expanding
existing rail transit systems and encouraging
transit-oriented development (TOD).
Reconnecting America (2011) has identified
a total of 643 potential new fixed-guideway
projects in 106 metropolitan regions. Of
these projects, 138 are in the construction
and engineering phase that will yield 1464
miles of new transit. Most of the cities with
these projects have witnessed an upsurge in
interest for residential, office and retail
development in areas directly served by
their rail transit systems. Demographic
changes, frustration with motor vehicle traf-
fic congestion, high gasoline prices and
other factors are creating strong demand for
housing, retail and offices in walkable,
mixed-use neighbourhoods close to transit.
2
Yet while some communities have
embraced transit-oriented development
and other smart growth principles,
other metropolitan areas have been less
enamoured by these initiatives and have
preferred to continue growing in a more
low-density, auto-dependent fashion. The
Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area repre-
sents an interesting case study that has
embraced smart growth planning but still
exemplifies both paradigms of urban
growth.
Growth in Denver
3
The Denver-Aurora metropolitan area is
located in the state of Colorado in the west-
ern US, and is composed of 10 counties,
including Denver, Arapahoe, Jefferson,
Adams and Douglas counties (see Figure 1).
This area has been experiencing explosive
population growth during the post-war era,
growing from a population of 564 000 in
1950 to 2.54 million in 2010, which now
places it as the 21st largest metropolitan area
in the US. Even though it is designated by
the US Census as a separate MSA, Boulder
County is sometimes included in the greater
Denver metropolitan area, which would
increase the metro area population to 2.8
million. Likewise, parts of south-western
Weld County, which is part of the Greeley
MSA, are sometimes included in the Denver
metropolitan area for planning purposes.
Most of the counties in the metro area have
been experiencing substantial growth, espe-
cially Douglas County which registered a
191 per cent increase from 1990 to 2000 (the
fastest-growing county in the US in that
decade) and 59.7 per cent since 2000 (see
Table 1). The other counties have also
grown significantly, including Adams,
Arapahoe and Boulder. Even the City and
County of Denver has experienced substan-
tial growth since 1990, which is unusual for
a central city in the US.
Post-1950 Suburbanisation and 1970s
Growth Control Movement
The city of Denver, at an elevation of 5280
feet (1609 metres) above sea level, hence
the nickname ‘Mile-high City’, was founded
in 1858 and experienced steady and sub-
stantial growth through the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Growth picked up
significantly after 1950, as the Denver met-
ropolitan area experienced a typical US
post-war suburbanisation process. Being
home to a number of military bases during
World War II, many veterans who were sta-
tioned in Denver or Colorado moved back
to Denver after the war, thus contributing
to substantial population in-migration.
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2183
Figure 1. The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Table 1. Population of the six largest counties in the Denver metropolitan area, 1950–2010
County 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Percentage change
1990–2000 2000–2010
Denver 415 786 493 887 514 678 492 365 467 610 554 636 600 158 18.6 8.2
Adams 40 234 120 296 185 789 245 944 265 038 363 857 441 603 37.3 21.4
Arapahoe 52 125 113 426 162 142 293 621 391 511 487 967 572 003 24.6 17.2
Boulder 48 296y74 254 131 889 189 625 225 339 291 288 294 567 29.3 1.1
Douglas yy y25 153 60 391 175 766 285 465 191.1 62.4
Jefferson 55 687 127 520 233 031 371 753 438 430 527 056 534 543 20.2 1.4
Total 563 832 929 383 1 227 529 1 620 902 1 848 319 2 400 570 2 728 339 29.9 13.7
ynot a part of Denver metro area in these years.
Notes: The US Census Bureau had different names for metropolitan area designations, as follows:
1950: Standard Metropolitan Areas (SMAs); 1960, 1970, 1980: Standard Metropolitan Statistical
Areas (SMSAs); 1990, 2000: Metropolitan Areas (MAs), Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas
(CMSAs), Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSAs); and after 2003: Metropolitan Statistical
Area (MSAs).
2184 ANDREW GOETZ
Denver also benefited from its location and
orientation as a Sunbelt city, with its strong
economy and quality of life attracting pop-
ulation especially from the US Midwest and
Northeast. The availability of Federal
Housing Administration and Veterans
Administration long-term low-interest
mortgages helped to fuel the suburban
housing boom, along with increased auto-
mobile ownership and construction of
interstate highways. In 1950, Denver’s urba-
nised population was just under 500 000, of
which 416 000 (83 per cent) lived in the
city of Denver. By 1990, the urbanised pop-
ulation had expanded more than threefold
to over 1.5 million, of whom only 467 000
(31 per cent) lived in the City and County
of Denver. The total urbanised land grew
more than fourfold from 105 to 459 square
miles during that same time-period, thus
resulting in a more sprawling urban land-
scape (Rusk, 2004).
While the Denver metropolitan area was
sprawling outward during the 1950–90
period, there were some counter-
movements that began to sow the seeds of
development alternatives to the low-density
suburban and exurban model. The first
rumblings of dissent occurred in the late
1960s and 1970s as part of the nation-wide
growth control and environmental move-
ment that produced groundbreaking legis-
lation such as the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969. In land use planning,
states began to impose growth controls on
local development to protect critical areas
in the so-called Quiet Revolution (Krueger
and Gibbs, 2008). A number of rapidly
growing and higher-income municipalities
and counties began to enact different mea-
sures to curb residential growth, such as
limiting residential permits or requiring
that developers bear more of the costs of
growth.
In Denver, a movement led by a Colorado
state representative, Richard Lamm,
opposed the hosting of the 1976 Winter
Olympics based on environmental and
financial concerns, and a general uneasiness
about the pace and character of growth in
Denver and the nearby mountain areas. In a
1972 referendum, Colorado voters rejected
hosting the Winter Olympics, the only time
in history that a city has turned down an
invitation to host the Olympic Games. On
the heels of this movement, Lamm was
elected governor of Colorado in 1975. In
1977, he stopped plans for a circumferential
beltway to be built around Denver, citing
concerns about sprawl and automobile
dependency during a period in which the
1970s energy crisis had driven gasoline
prices to record high levels. It was at this
time that Denver and Colorado were devel-
oping a reputation as a more eco-friendly,
slow-growth area. For example, the city of
Boulder enacted growth control measures
starting in 1976 that sought to limit residen-
tial growth to no more than 2 per cent per
year (de Raismes et al., 2000).
While the growth control movement had
some impact in Colorado and some other
states in the 1970s, a neoliberal anti-control
backlash typified federal, state and local pol-
icies in the 1980s. The regional economy in
Denver and Colorado during the 1970s
benefited from the activities of energy
exploration companies that sought to
expand their operations in the oil and gas
fields of Colorado, Wyoming and other
western states as a result of high energy
prices at that time. Yet just as quickly as the
boom occurred, by the early 1980s, the price
of oil and gas began to plummet due to new
sources being developed throughout the
world. In 1982, Exxon announced that it
was pulling out of its western Colorado oil
shale project and closed its Denver office,
thus starting a stampede of energy company
closures in Colorado. By the mid 1980s,
Denver was actually losing population and
attention turned away from growth control
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2185
to pro-development strategies. A concerted
effort to instigate the state and city econo-
mies featured the construction of large
public projects such as Denver International
Airport, the Denver Convention Center in
downtown Denver and Coors Field in the
Lower Downtown (LoDo) area, each of
which benefitted from strong business sup-
port (Weiler, 2000). Coors Field was built to
house the Colorado Rockies baseball team
that started playing in 1993, showing that
Denver still considered itself very much a
major league sports city, 20 years after the
rejection of the Winter Olympics. Plans for
building a circumferential beltway around
the metropolitan area were resurrected and
paved the way for new suburban residential
and commercial ventures, such as the mas-
sive Highlands Ranch development in
Douglas County which eventually grew to a
population of nearly 100 000 by 2010.
With the majestic Rocky Mountains
such a prominent feature located directly
west of Denver, it was inevitable that resi-
dential development would extend into the
nearby foothills and mountain region. The
construction of Interstate-70 west of
Denver into the mountains opened up a
major access corridor that allowed residents
the ability to live in the mountains but still
be able to commute to the Denver area.
Numerous exurban communities in
Jefferson, Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin and
Park counties, located up to 30–50 miles
away from Denver, started to experience
substantial growth. Particularly popular
have been the 1–40-acre ‘ranchettes’ that
have allowed residents to have their ‘home
on the range’, but still be within driving
distance of metropolitan Denver. This
ultra-low-density exurban sprawl is not
usually included in statistical analyses of
urbanised land expansion; thus many stud-
ies tend to underestimate the extent of resi-
dential development in the hinterlands of
metropolitan areas (Sutton et al., 2006).
1990–2010 Smart Growth, New Urbanism
and Regional Planning
The 1980s economic downturn lasted only a
short while and, by the early 1990s, Denver
was growing again. There was a large spike
in population migration from California in
the early 1990s in the wake of several major
earthquakes in California, the Rodney King
incident in Los Angeles and subsequent fall-
out from these events. Depressed real estate
prices in Denver proved to be an inviting
catalyst that prompted many Californians
and others to discover the natural amenities
and relatively high quality of life in the
Denver area. The 1990s population boom
was also a result of a more diversified eco-
nomic base that benefitted from the public–
private development projects started in the
late 1980s. The Denver metro area grew by
30.7 per cent during the 1990s, thus leading
to a reconsideration of how growth should
be best accommodated in the future.
In the early 1990s, the Denver Regional
Council of Governments (DRCOG), the
region’s designated metropolitan planning
organisation (MPO) whose board includes
all of the city mayors and county commis-
sioners in the region, began its long-range
Metro Vision 2020 planning process.
Shortly after the Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of
1991 allocated more authority to MPOs to
conduct urban transport planning, DRCOG
embarked on a more focused regional plan-
ning exercise due to several growth-related
factors that were impacting the Denver
region. These included rapid urbanised
land expansion that was on pace to exceed
1000 square miles, a notorious air pollution
problem that resulted in non-attainment of
federal air quality standards, rapidly
increasing vehicle miles travelled and traffic
congestion, and continuing battles over
funding and approval for suburban belt-
ways. Regional officials and DRCOG
2186 ANDREW GOETZ
realised that a coherent vision of the
region’s future was necessary. The resulting
Metro Vision 2020 plan focused on growth
and development, the natural environment
and transport, and clearly embraced a
smart growth approach to regional plan-
ning (DRCOG, 1997). Features of Metro
Vision included a voluntary urban growth
boundary/area that was initially set not to
exceed 700 square miles,
4
a focus on
higher-density development in designated
urban centres, designation of four free-
standing communities, improving air qual-
ity in the region and, most significantly, a
rail transit system that would serve as the
backbone of the regional transport system.
Regional support for the smart-growth-
oriented Metro Vision plan was much more
broadly based than support for the growth
control measures of the 1970s. The most
important difference was the support of the
development and business community for
the smart growth plan. The Denver Metro
Chamber of Commerce, composed of over
3000 metropolitan area businesses, and
other regional business associations have
been supportive of many elements in Metro
Vision, especially measures to improve air
quality and traffic congestion. The mayors
and county commissioners have also been
unified in support and have forged new
regional alliances through organisations
such as the Metro Mayors Caucus (MMC).
The MMC was formed in 1993 as a volun-
tary, consensus-based organisation focused
on addressing issues of regional impor-
tance. The mayors felt that there was a need
for a more co-operative and collaborative
forum to exchange ideas and viewpoints
outside the more traditional and confronta-
tional arenas (Goetz et al., 2011). The
MMC and the Chamber of Commerce
espoused a more cohesive vision for the
region than had previous planning efforts
which had been typified by discord and par-
ochialism. One such previous example was
the 1974 Poundstone Amendment to the
Colorado Constitition that effectively lim-
ited the ability of counties to annex land
from other counties. Concerned about
potential annexations by the City and
County of Denver, a suburban mayor pro-
nounced that ‘‘we will fight Denver in all
ways possible like Poland did when Hitler
decided he needed more land .We will
fight until they are as bloody as a bull’s
hock’’ (Leonard and Noel, 1990, p. 293). In
contrast, the Denver Metro Chamber presi-
dent said in 1990 that
the world sees Denver as you see it from an
airplane—without artificial boundaries. We
should treat it that way and deal together on
common problems of air pollution, eco-
nomic development, transportation and
water (Leonard and Noel, 1990, p. 473).
In the mid 1980s, the City and County of
Denver decided to build the new Denver
International Airport and to close Stapleton
Airport to all aviation activity. In 1995,
Stapleton Airport was closed and Denver
proposed to redevelop the 4700-acre site
into a mixed-use development based on
Peter Calthorpe’s new urbanist principles as
espoused in the Stapleton Development Plan
(aka the ‘Green Book’). Urban social coali-
tions in Denver ensured that a wide range
of housing styles from apartments, town-
homes and rowhouses to larger single-
family dwellings would result in Stapleton
becoming a mixed-income neighbourhood
with substantial affordable housing. These
same coalitions also pressed for more
schools to be built to encourage more fami-
lies to move there. In 1998, Denver hired
Forest City Enterprises to lead the massive
redevelopment effort that was expected to
occur over a long time horizon. As of 2010,
Stapleton had nearly 10 000 residents, six
schools and more than 200 shops, restau-
rants and services.
5
The full build-out calls
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2187
for 12 000 residential units, 10 million
square feet of office space, 3 million square
feet of retail space and 1100 acres of parks
and open space (Leccese, 2005). Stapleton
is already one of the largest urban infill
projects in the US and it has received sev-
eral national and international awards for
sustainable urban development. Other
smart growth projects in Denver that are
consistent with the Metro Vision plan
include the 16th Street pedestrian retail
mall that was closed to automobile traffic,
the redevelopment and gentrification of the
Lower Downtown (LoDo) area near Union
Station and Coors Field, and the redevelop-
ment of several suburban auto-oriented
shopping malls into pedestrian-friendly
‘new downtowns’.
However, the most ambitious smart
growth project in the metropolitan area has
been the Regional Transportation District
(RTD) FasTracks programme that will add
122 miles of light and commuter rail transit
and 18 miles of bus rapid transit in six corri-
dors radiating outward from a redeveloped
Union Station (see Figure 2). This expansion
builds upon the 7-mile Central Corridor
and Central Platte Valley, the 9-mile South-
west (SW) Corridor and the 19-mile South-
east (SE) Corridor light rail lines that were
built in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2004,
voters in the RTD area approved a 0.4 per
cent sales tax increase to fund the $4.7 bil-
lion FasTracks expansion.
6
In a metropoli-
tan area that had previously voted down
efforts to build a regional rail system in the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the 2004 vote in
favour of a vastly expanded rail transit
system was a significant departure from the
automobile/highway orientation of the
post-war period. Residents had become dis-
enchanted with the ever-worsening traffic
congestion on the major interstates and
arterial roads and, after having seen RTD
deliver the SW and SE Corridor rail lines on
time and under budget, with actual ridership
exceeding projections, they felt that rail tran-
sit could provide a more efficient and envir-
onmentally friendly mode of urban
transport. The local business community as
represented by area chambers of commerce
was very supportive of the rail transit expan-
sion and all 31 mayors in the Denver Metro
Mayors Caucus also supported the initiative.
In addition, the Alliance for Regional
Stewardship, an affiliate of the American
Chambers of Commerce Executives com-
mitted to working across regional bound-
aries (co-founded by John Parr, a regional
leader from Denver), played a strong role in
support of FasTracks. In the years since the
2004 vote, sharp increases in the cost of con-
struction materials plus declining revenues
from the 2008-09 economic recession have
resulted in a $2.4 billion funding gap to
complete the entire programme by 2017
(RTD, 2010b). As of 2013, RTD, estimates
that the West, East, Gold Line, and I-225
Corridors will be complete by 2016, but that
the North Metro and North-west Corridors,
plus the SW and SE extensions will take
longer to build at current cost and revenue
rates. The RTD Board of Directors consid-
ered a plan to increase the regional sales tax
by another 0.4 per cent to complete the
entire system by 2017, but decided not to
place the referendum on the ballot for
November 2010, 2011, or 2012 in light of
continuing economic concerns.
As espoused in DRCOG’s Metro Vision
statement, it was expected that a rail transit
system would help to shape future growth
in the region by encouraging more high-
density transit-oriented development
(TOD) in transit corridors and station
areas. To help implement this vision, the
City and County of Denver produced a
new land use and transport plan in 2002
called ‘‘Blueprint Denver’’ that created a
new TOD zoning code allowing higher-
density mixed-use development to occur in
station areas and along transit corridors.
2188 ANDREW GOETZ
This designation and increased private-
sector real estate interest have led to a TOD
boom in Denver. Development already
built or under construction within half a
mile of existing or planned station areas
include 16 146 housing units, 4754 hotel
rooms, 5.1 million square feet of office
space, 5.2 million square feet of retail space
and 5.9 million square feet of medical space
(RTD, 2010a; Ratner and Goetz, 2013).
Figure 2. Regional Transportation District existing rail lines and proposed FasTracks Rail
Transit Program.
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2189
Most of the development has been built
within the downtown area along the
Central Corridor and the Central Platte
Valley lines. This includes a considerable
amount of development activity in proxim-
ity to Union Station, especially the area
between Union Station and the South
Platte River which is in the midst of a
major transformation from abandoned rail
yards into a residential, office, commercial
and recreational district called Riverpoint
Park. Union Station itself is being redeve-
loped as part of the FasTracks programme
into an intermodal hub that will serve as
the focal point for light rail, commuter rail,
Amtrak, ski train, regional express bus and
intercity bus service, as well as office, retail,
hotel and restaurant development. Outside
the city of Denver, the inner-ring suburb
of Englewood redeveloped an old mall
into a new transit-oriented development
(along the SW Corridor) called CityCenter
Englewood that now houses the Englewood
Civic Center with city offices, courtrooms
and library, along with on-site retail and
residential development. And in Aurora
(along the proposed I-225 corridor), the
Anschutz/Fitzsimons Medical Campus,
which is the new home of the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center, has been
expanding rapidly with ambitious plans for
additional growth in the future. Still, most
of the transit-oriented development in
Denver was built or was under construction
in the 2006–09 period, while short-term
projections for the 2010–15 period indicate
a substantial slowdown in development due
to the economic recession of 2008–09
(RTD, 2010a; Ratner and Goetz, 2013).
In addition to RTD’s FasTracks financial
difficulties, some other smart growth efforts
in Denver and Colorado have faced obsta-
cles. In 2000, the Colorado Voter Approval
of Growth Act (Amendment 24) sought to
change the State of Colorado constitution
by requiring voter approval of growth area
maps that identified areas for future devel-
opment in counties greater than 10 000
population and cities and towns greater
than 1000 population. These jurisdictions
would also have been required to identify
‘committed areas’ where growth would be
allowed to occur without voter approval
and to provide information to voters about
the impacts of proposed growth. Despite
strong support from the Colorado Public
Interest Research Group (COPIRG), the
Sierra Club, and other environmental orga-
nisations, Amendment 24 was defeated in
November 2000 by a 70–30 margin. Key to
the measure’s defeat was vigorous opposi-
tion from the development industry within
and outside Colorado, exemplified by a $6
million advertising campaign to influence
voters to reject the amendment (Murray,
2002). Since then, smart growth efforts have
largely been confined to the local or regional
scale, and mostly in Denver, other Front
Range cities and fast-growing mountain
communities.
Impacts of Smart Growth in Denver:
The Bottom Line
All of the smart growth initiatives that the
Denver Regional Council of Governments
(DRCOG), the Regional Transportation
District (RTD), the City and County of
Denver and all of the other counties and
municipalities have implemented over the
past 20 years with substantial support from
regional business and citizen coalitions have
changed the trajectory of urban develop-
ment in the Denver region. Prior to 1990,
the population density of the region as mea-
sured by total persons per square mile of
urbanised land had decreased from 4741 in
1950 to 3309 in 1990 due to the on-going
suburbanisation and decentralisation of the
region’s population. However, after 1990,
urban density increased to 3979 persons per
square-mile by 2000, representing a 20.2 per
2190 ANDREW GOETZ
cent increase over the decade (Rusk 2004).
Since 2000, urban density, as measured by
the number of housing units per square mile
of urban land, continued to increase from
1379 in 2000 to 1429 in 2006 (DRCOG,
2008). Housing and employment are both
increasing in the higher-density, mixed-use,
transit and pedestrian-oriented urban cen-
tres. At the same time, however, urban land
consumption continues to grow. In the year
2000, the urban land area for the Denver
region was 635 square miles, which grew to
717 square miles by 2006, representing a
12.9 per cent increase. At this rate of urban
land expansion, the entire urbanised area
would cover 1106 square miles by 2035, thus
exceeding the urban growth boundary/area
of 921 square miles that was established in
the Metro Vision 2035 plan (DRCOG, 2008).
Large-lot development in outlying jurisdic-
tions continues to contribute to the expan-
sion of the urbanised land area.
Summary and Conclusions
Ever since at least the 1960s, there has been
a growing realisation that the low-density,
auto-oriented suburban growth paradigm,
while successful in terms of private profit-
ability and popular appeal, has come with
increasing social, environmental and
broader economic costs. Efforts to change
this model from the 1960s to the 1980s,
whether in the form of urban renewal,
growth control, growth management or
top–down regional initiatives, have pro-
duced mixed results but have not seriously
challenged the prevailing low-density sub-
urban growth paradigm.
The smart growth movement of the
1990s and 2000s, while bearing some simi-
larities to previous growth control and
growth management initiatives, has been
more successful at creating an alternative
urban development paradigm that relies on
higher-density, mixed-use neighbourhoods
and activity centres that are more amenable
to walking, biking and transit use. The
smart growth movement has been more
successful because it has a broader coalition
of support that includes large segments of
governments at all levels, the public-at-
large and especially the development com-
munity. While many growth control efforts
of the 1960s and 1970s were perceived to be
too confrontational and anathema to devel-
opers and larger business interests, many
aspects of the smart growth movement are
supported by commercial development
firms and area chambers of commerce. In
short, some elements of the development
and business community have embraced
smart growth because there is growing
market demand for alternative urban activ-
ity centres and neighbourhoods different
from the typical low-density suburban
development model. The smart growth
movement has also benefited from new
regional collaboration that has featured
‘bottom–up’ approaches involving informal
networks of local government, business and
citizen advocacy groups to forge non-
traditional coalitions in support of regional
policies.
The Denver metropolitan region is an
interesting example of the two major para-
digms of urban growth in the post-1950
era. From 1950 to 1990, Denver followed
the classic US post-war suburban and exur-
ban low-density development model with
increasing dependence on automobiles and
highways. Edge-city developments, retail
malls and large-lot developments on the
urban fringe contributed to a massive
expansion of urbanised land and the
accompanying economic and environmen-
tal costs associated with urban sprawl. Yet
in response to concerns over rapid popula-
tion growth, urban land expansion, air
quality and increasing traffic congestion,
Denver reached a watershed moment in the
SMART GROWTH IN DENVER 2191
early 1990s with the development of its
Metro Vision regional planning process
that supported higher-density, mixed-use,
infill development and a regional rail transit
system to link urban activity centres. Since
1990, the Denver area has been increasing
its population and employment density,
especially in its transit and pedestrian-
oriented urban centres. The overall popula-
tion density of the region has increased in
spite of continued increases in the urba-
nised land area.
The Denver metropolitan region also
represents an interesting case study of how
the smart growth movement of the 1990s
and 2000s has been ‘more than a ghost of
urban policy past’ but also ‘less than a bold
new horizon’. While a number of growth
control measures were initiated in the
1970s, such as the rejection of the Winter
Olympics and the cancellation of the I-470
interstate beltway project, the support for
these actions was relatively short-lived and
faded away during the economic decline
and subsequent economic development
efforts of the 1980s. Principally associated
with the firebrand governor Richard Lamm
who was known for his incendiary state-
ments such as ‘‘driving a silver stake’’
through the beltway project, the growth
control movement in Colorado antagonised
the development community and other
powerful growth machine interests. By con-
trast, the smart growth movement of the
1990s and 2000s has largely sought to
include the development community, as well
as a broader coalition of government and
business interests in supporting specific
smart growth programmes and projects. The
redevelopment of Lower Downtown Denver
(LoDo), Stapleton and other new-urbanist-
influenced projects were the result of public–
private partnerships and a wider recognition
of the benefits of infill development. The
approval of the 122-mile addition to the rail
transit system known as FasTracks was a
result of unprecedented collaboration among
mayors, county commissioners and chambers
of commerce in the Denver metropolitan
region who largely supported the rail transit
expansion. The rise of non-traditional ‘new
regionalist’ organisations such as the Metro
Mayors Caucus and the Alliance for Regional
Stewardship were critical to the support for
FasTracks. Simply put, the smart growth
initiatives of the 1990s and 2000s have been
more widely supported, longer-lasting and
ultimately more successful than the growth
control efforts of the 1970s.
Nevertheless, not all initiatives have been
successful; thus smart growth represents
something less than a bold new horizon. The
failure of Amendment 24 in 2000 and the
current financial difficulties of FasTracks
have been setbacks for the smart growth
movement in Colorado. Furthermore, the
continued popularity of ultra-low-density
(1–40-acre ‘ranchettes’) residential develop-
ments on the exurban fringe undermines the
purpose and effectiveness of the region’s
voluntary urban growth boundary/area.
Even though density within the region has
been increasing since 1990, the urbanised
land area has also been increasing at a rate
that would exceed the maximum growth
area defined in the Metro Vision 2035 plan.
It is not clear whether the smart growth
movement will engender a full paradigm
shift away from lower-density, auto-
oriented suburban development towards
higher-density, mixed-use, transit and
pedestrian-oriented urban centres. Yet it is
clear that the smart growth movement has
been more successful at implementing the
new paradigm than previous efforts. Given
the substantial economic, social and envi-
ronmental costs of sprawling suburban
development, it is likely that more sustain-
able urban design approaches will continue
to be implemented and will slowly replace
the previous low-density suburban devel-
opment paradigm.
2192 ANDREW GOETZ
Funding
This research was funded in part by the
National Center for Intermodal Transportation,
University of Denver and Mississippi State
University.
Notes
1. A previous wave of suburbanisation in the
US started in the 1920s, although the size
and scale of the post-1945 suburban era
dwarfed that earlier period. Also, according
to Jackson (1985), early forms of US subur-
banisation can be traced to the mid 1800s
with the beginning of the intraurban trans-
port revolution and the erosion of the walk-
ing city.
2. See Centre for Transit-Oriented Develop-
ment website (www.ctod.org/portal/; accessed
19 July 2011).
3. This case study is based on surveys, inter-
views and background research conducted in
two research projects on regional collabora-
tion, rail transit and transit-oriented devel-
opment in Denver for the National Center
for Intermodal Transportation.
4. In the latest Metro Vision 2035 plan, the
urban growth boundary/area was expanded
to 921 square miles (DRCOG, 2007).
5. See Forest City Stapleton website (www.
about.stapletndenver.com/about/history).
6. The original cost estimate in 2004 was $4.7
billion. The cost of FasTracks is now esti-
mated at $6.7 billion due to rapidly expand-
ing costs of building materials since 2004
(RTD, 2010b).
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