A worried city trying to remember to be welcoming
From Vice President John Riecke
We’ve all noticed the increased traffic, the decrease in easy parking, and the sudden appearance of what feel like hundreds of new multi unit residential developments. Right next door. In our neighborhood. Invading our space. It can feel like we’re under assault and we have no say in what’s happening to our city.
Of course, there’s also the flip side to the coin. Thousands of new residents bringing new energy, new ideas, new businesses to our city. They invest in buildings, old and new, trying to make better lives for themselves. They buy in to the friendly culture, they look for local shops and watering holes to support, and “they” become “we”.
It’s important to remember that we’re not being invaded by outsiders trying to destroy our way of life, but instead being joined by new neighbors looking to make friends and live in the same great city we all do. Sure there’s some difficult change involved. Driving is a little bit less convenient. People live a little closer together. But the overall result is that Denver continues to be a vibrant city, continues to have a healthy economy, and everyone has that much more opportunity to make a new friend.
Call it the perils of being popular. Or think of the old Yogi Berra quote, “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.
I agree that we need to look at it in the positive viewpoint. As our city grows, it will impact for good and for bad. However, I believe the good will far outweigh the bad. I am a local business owner and I believe that I am already seeing positive fruit happening from it.
What I hear expressed is a call for balance. I agree that the mayor went too far specifically focusing on promoting immigration of people to Denver in the very strong way that he has, but we were naturally going to get an increase in population anyway. Beginning with the wave of people that relocated to Denver after WWII, Denver has constantly had to integrate large numbers of new arrivals. Denver has always integrated these new arrivals and built a stronger Denver with them. We need to do the same for the 21st century arrivals, although it will be hard because of many factors, a primary of which is the extremely large number of recent Denver immigrants and the lack of investment in infrastructure to support all of us.
I agree with Tom. Both the Mayor and the Governor are the culprits, insisting on helping more people to come to Denver. For what purpose? The result is that our formerly blue skies are once again polluted from vehicle discharge and lots of PM 10 and 2.5 – the particles of vehicle exhaust that cause both asthma and heart problems. We got rid of it once, last century. Thanks but no thanks for both Mayor and Governor pressing for more people to locate in the Denver area. Bah! Humbug!!
It grieves me to read the President of INC extolling economic advances and ignoring the social effects of newcomers who want to make Denver like the place they came from.