If you do take the Zephyr, I'll meet you at the Denver stop to say hi. I live and work near Union Station, which itself is a great destination.

@alysonsee
Hey, that's a deal. Denver Union Station certainly appeals to me a lot more than the Brutalist architecture I've been discussing on another thread.

Union Station also is a great "rising from the ashes story". Like a lot of US train stations, it had become a big, empty hall in an area of the city that had very little foot traffic. The only people who ever saw the inside were those picking up the train that came through 2ce a day. It is now the hub for all local mass transit, a upscale food and shopping court, swanky bars, and hotel. The re-designers kept the central hall but got rid of all of the tall-backed benches and created a variety of seating areas and working desks. You get your food and brews around the edges and sit in the middle. People are in there all day, socializing or working on their laptops. On Saturday mornings in the summertime, there is a farmer's market out front. It's very lively, as is that whole of lower downtown now.

I'm also not a fan of Brutalist architecture, except Habitat 67 in Montreal.. Most of it looks like like some structure that mutated out of a highway underpass.

@alysonsee
The re-design sounds like it has been a big success. Hipster Central? The Crawford Hotel looks very plush, too. Is Denver quite a prosperous city? I think general economic activity in a place helps ensure the success of re-developments.

I note that Habitat 67 won a Lego Architecture poll. Well, no susprise there. 😉

Indeed, Denver is booming. The state drivers' license division can barely keep up with all of the new requests. Housing is getting unaffordable, and less financially advantaged, long-time residents are feeling pushed out. But 20 years ago, I remember Denver as generally empty and capped by a brown cloud of pollution. (I lived in Boulder at the time.)

Hipsters are a noticeable demographic here. But they don't look quite as stereotypical as, say, Seattle or Portland. Knitting and urban beekeeping are still in, but the beard sculpting is waning (thank Dog). Fixed gear bicycles were only a brief trend (impractical when you live near mountains). So, instead, we have geared bicycles made to look like fixed gear bikes (aka city bikes). 😀

@alysonsee
That's interesting. Gentrification here gets some bad press. In general because properties move upmarket and the original (class of) residents are priced out. I'm not sure what the solution is to that problem. If a previously undesirable area is improved, prices will likely increase. The only solution would be to leave it unchanged. Unless you restricted ownership to only existing residents, but that would be a remarkable restriction on freedom.
>>>

@alysonsee
<<<
Hipster knitting, urban beekeeping, single-geared bikes and beard sculpting; I hadn't realised they were defining characteristics. I live a sheltered life.

@fitheach @alysonsee People who get gentrified out of an area also lose the freedom to choose where they live.

@fitheach @alysonsee And often the place wasn't "undesirable" from the perspective of existing residents, only from the point of view of property speculators.

@bob
Yeah, I understand the problems. However, if you improve an area its desirability will increase and thus the property prices. How could you get around that problem?

There were/are plenty of places that are undesirable due to damp, poor construction, terrible infrastructure etc. The problem perhaps is that projects are controlled by speculators rather than, say, local authorities.

@alysonsee

@fitheach @alysonsee I think the solution is to have the people who are living in an area make the decisions about how it is developed/improved. Given the choice they probably wouldn't make themselves homeless.

@bob
I don't believe it is that simple. The residents might be in agreement that a new school/combined community centre would be a good idea. They might also be in agreement that improvements to the local shopping centre would be good. Finally, a new park/recreation area is given the thumbs up. What happens next? House prices went up.

BTW not a hypothetical sitaution, exactly what happened in a community near(ish) to where I live.

>>>

@alysonsee

@bob
My example wasn't a problem for those who continued to live in the community, but it did stop people of a similar socio-economic group from moving in. New people moving in had higher incomes.

The only way you could stop this "gentrification" would be complete control of housing through local authorities or associations.

@alysonsee

Certainly, change is constant. But there are some things that can be done within government to make it less destructive. Build affordable housing quotas into new, multi-family projects; freeze property taxes for folks who have owned their home since a certain date; put a moratorium on scrape-and-build projects in key neighborhoods; or tax growth industries to benefit rental assistance programs. But that takes a lot of political will--will to go against the institutions who driving and/or benefitting from the growth.

@alysonsee
Oh, meant to say, I'll use this description in the future:

"mutated out of a highway underpass."