Imagine, Denver ...

A great city's next 10 years .....

Now that the election’s over – it’s time for elections!

Denver’s municipal elections are less than six months away. The first mayoral candidate debate has already happened. It’s time for a conversation about Denver’s next decade.

The city’s issues are particularly acute this year; the world’s working model has changed and Denver’s been slow to respond. The city can be revived as a global leader for inclusive innovation and sustainable growth – others are doing it.   We’re late.

What is sustainable, inclusive growth?  It’s the frame the community adopted to build an inclusive growth plan for the Baltimore to Richmond region at the Greater Washington Partnership.  McKinsey works with this for their clients worldwide, pointing out that ‘our future lives and livelihoods are Sustainable AND inclusive AND growing’:

“Sustainable, inclusive growth—that is, economic growth that provides the financial resources needed to contain climate change, promote natural capital and biodiversity, empower households, and promote equitable opportunity.”

It’s a huge – and complex – opportunity; “This societal challenge might be ten times as big as the pandemic and last ten times as long”.   And it’s lucrative — closing the wealth gap in the Baltimore to Richmond area, for example, would generate $50 billion in incremental GDP per year! 

It’s no longer a choice.  Colorado has been a talent magnet; now, talent insists that growth has to be value- and mission-driven – with sustainability and inclusion at the heart. Those cities and regions that move first and fastest will win the talent wars.

We need a plan.

“From a distance, the downtown skyline’s boxy office towers are joined by newer, narrower residential towers. With many office jobs remaining partially or fully remote, downtowns - and the cities that relied on them as a tax base and economic engine - had to reinvent themselves as not just a place to work, but a place to live.”

Here are a few of the acute issues and opportunities that Denver needs to address for a sustainable, inclusive growth future:

The old office tower economy isn’t going to return:

• Demand for central business district office space is collapsing. Some cities are looking at a 40% decline in the value of office space. ‘B” and ‘C’ grade office space in city centers are essentially abandoned as work-from-home becomes standard.  Denver’s office occupancy is about 50% pre-pandemic levels – not a lot worse than other cities, but a huge issue for downtown’s vitality and the city’s revenue. Denver, with lots of tech-related office jobs and terrible commuting traffic, is uniquely susceptible.

  •  Only about one-third of the B and C grade office stock can be retrofit for residential

• Meanwhile, activity centers like Cherry Creek and Golden are taking top employers away from central Denver . Great for them – but those areas are not built around or for diversity and inclusion, values which are basic rights to the next generation of great talent.  Denver has been experimenting , but we need plans for downtown – that scale --  now .

• The decline in office rents and taxes, combined with the fall-off in Federal funding mean big fiscal cliffs ahead. 

This is all in the context of broader work/life/talent trends:

• Major cities are moving fast to become 100% bikeable, 15-minute cities.  Denver’s not part of the conversation.

• The work-from-home trend is part of a broader values shift, away from work-first and employer-first to balance, experience, and as Richard Florida calls it in his newest work, a broad creator economy This is a great fit for Denver — if the city itself is attractive to creators.

Denver — and Colorado — have big advantages — if we move fast enough:

• This Supreme Court’s radical ‘federalism’ will continue to divide the country between great states (like Colorado) and hate states – those restricting long-standing human rights (Florida, Texas).  This creates a huge talent opportunity for Colorado and for Denver.

• The U.S. has entered into a new era of heavily-funded industrial policy, with massive investment available as entire industries are reshored and our infrastructure updated – and Denver and  Colorado are not at the table.

While sustainable, inclusive growth can be a virtuous cycle for the region — waiting exacerbates the worst issues.

• The unhoused and public safety issues are all accelerated by the decline of downtown.

• Sustainability — and inclusive growth, for which affordable , sustainable housing is one of six key pillars — are ‘both/ and’ for growth — not either/or

Colorado has experimented in many of these areas, and it’s now time to scale them fast.  It’s important that the 17 Mayoral candidates talk openly about the relationship between sustainability and inclusion – and growth.  The former can’t be met without the latter. Denver has advantages:

• Expertise exists – let’s tap into it!  Major consulting firms have 20x the number of employees today in Denver that they had six years ago. We relied on many of these to develop the detailed gap analyses and roadmap for the Greater Washington region — they have the expertise and are eager to help their hometown.

• World class organizations and efforts are already working on many of the ideas listed here, and are eager to have Denver join which will elevate the city and state’s global profile.

• Plans have to be collaborative to become action.  Philanthropy, business, education, and all the great grassroots organizations have to be at the table together. Efforts like this and this are encouraging.

Here are a few sustainable, inclusive growth big ideas for Denver:

• Make Denver 100% cyclable. It’s possible:

  • Paris is doing it

  • The ebike industry will triple in three years — Colorado should lead it. Denver’s e-bike rebate program is already a national model.

  • How about this? In Barcelona, Kids Bike To School In Large, Choreographed Herds

• Reduce car density.

  “The main thing that keeps nature and green out of cities isn’t density of buildings or density of people — it's density of cars." - @brenttoderian .

  • Turn Speer, from the Convention Center through Auraria parkway to I 25, into a no-auto zone

  • Turn Larimer into a no-auto-zone — all of it, from Auraria through RiNo (here are some great street design tips from Oslo)

  • How about an entire car-free inner ring? Amsterdam is doing it.

•    Cover every surface parking lot of size with solar panels

  • Sidenote — every datacenter in Colorado should be covered with these, too

• Figure out the B and C office space issue NOW.

  • Convert those that can into diverse and inclusive, affordable creator economy collabs (creatorcubators!)

  • Tear down those that cannot

Apart from place-based moves -- let’s accelerate collaborations between industry and our great post-secondary educational institutions – at scale.

• Denver should be a world leader creating practical credentials and more lifelong pathways for a larger and more diverse workforce.

• Start with STEM. We should have a STEM academy initiative, like Massachusetts’.

• Our higher ed institutions need to be much more ambitious — and it’s time for major philanthropic support for research and for sustainable inclusive growth at those institutions.

  • This sustainability school at Stanford (it’s first new school in 70 years!) is a great example

  • This major innovation effort in Maine is another one

  • Colorado needs to compete for the new national industrial policy funding in America. We should have a state-wide effort involving all the research universities and labs to compete for CHIPS, IRA, Infrastructure and other funding

Imagine a carbon-free Denver where radically diverse creator economy innovators live affordably and walk or bike safely along car-free streets to everything they need within 15 minutes. Imagine that those innovators living downtown include public school teachers and our public safety and other governmental service providers. Imagine Denver and Colorado central to the new national investment in industrial policy. Imagine our post-secondary institutions fully integrated into and accessible by the community, and known globally, in close concert with employers, for delivering a radically diverse and inclusive lifelong-learning workforce no longer hobbled by traditional degree expectations and costs.

It’s happening elsewhere, and time to start the collective creative collaboration for Denver’s next decades.