Denver wants to create massive development in two areas, Central Platte Valley and Auraria, where mostly non-residential areas are going to be converted into a line of affordable diverse housing structures that have input from the people currently living on or near those districts. “Twenty years from now, hopefully we look back and it’s a neighborhood that’s for everyone,” said Steve Nalley, a neighborhood planning supervisor. “If we don’t, we failed.” The great thing about these development projects is that the supervisors and city planning officials are listening to the voices of the people of the diverse community and creating housing that’s affordable and caters to their needs instead of focusing on creating developments that relocate the masses. With community input and the city development officials on the same page, the planning committee behind this massive Denver development project can create an ideal relationship in how city planning can coexists with community needs and diversity. The community has inputed that it wants affordable housing, affordable services and schools, and local businesses to be implemented in the new development so it can flourish with the new developments and the city planning committee are adjusting their plans to coincide with these ideas. The community has also put in input that people working in the businesses should live in the community that they work allowing a culture to flourish instead of having national chain services or people community hours to work in the area. A city that listens to the needs to the community can create something truly special and Denver has an opportunity to create the ideal relation between city development and community planning.
Denver District Developments: The Ideal Relation of Community Planning and City Development
“There is no social change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals” is a quote by Winona LaDuke which highlights the themes of today’s readings (Angotti 113). The readings talked about the Cooper Square and Melrose common plans and how both were two important milestones in community plan and change for community voice in development planning in the city. Both cases represent how persistence and fighting for community representation and purpose can lead to compromise and lead to a voice for the community in city planning. Instead of developers being able to impose their own vision upon neighborhoods and relocate thousands of people with unaffordable housing plans and buildings, the community came together and projected their voice forcing development plans that had minimum percentages of affordable housing built and contingencies that prevented mass relocation of people already living in their respective communities. While the battles between city developers and community planning has led to the compromise of new development projects with community input in NYC a special case in Denver, Colorado shows how community planning in conjunction with city agendas listening to the needs of the people can create a diverse, multi-cultural, and affordable neighborhood.
