Stagnation

I am a big fan of Seth Godin. Here are fragments of one of my favorite essays by him - Stagnation is easy, change is hard.

“They want to make the supermarket near my house better. Add free parking for all the people who want to shop in the village (where there is no free parking). Add more fresh produce and organic foods, as well as an enhanced deli/prepared food section. They also want to take over an abandoned lot where a car dealership stood abandoned for years, and eliminate a little-used street that messes up the traffic.

The town is up in arms!

There are petitions everywhere. People are outraged. Shocked. It'll ruin everything.

It seems as though it's easy to be against change.

There's a toxic waste dump in my town, crowned by an old, rusting, abandoned water tower. There's actually a committee to protect the water tower, given that it signifies an important part of our (toxic) heritage.”

“If I ran the Stop & Shop supermarket near my house, I'd bluff. I'd pull bulldozers and wrecking balls into town and tell everyone I was going to demolish my no longer profitable store and then leave the parking lot filled with bricks so no one could park there and jog over the wine store while using my parking lot.

The outrage would be so profound I'd have no trouble at all selling the town on a small upgrade.

All change isn't good. Not at all. But the knee jerk irrational opposition to change is less good. Marketing is all about making change. More often than not, a good way to sell that change is not with the promise for gain. It's with the fear of loss. Sad but true.”

Sad but true it is. And it painfully applies to the current discussion regarding the Zoning Code – the Downzoning (stagnation) versus the Sustainable Growth. Here is another way to look at the issue:

Denver population is expected to grow from 2.5 million today to 4 million by the year 2030. An average high-rise residential tower of 20 stories may house approximately 160 apartments. 160 apartments x 2.5 people per apartment = 400 people. How many high-rise towers are we going to need to accommodate the growth of our City? Given the City limits are fixed, where are those towers going to be built? How is this going to affect the urban landscape of Denver? Maybe duplexes and row houses are not so bad after all?