10 Denver schools slated for closure still are “on watch,” Aurora has shuttered 8 schools and Jeffco will close 15.
Gentrification
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Equity, Growth, Housing, News
Westminster clears controversial Uplands development proposal for “the Farm”
By Luke Zarzecki, The Westminster Window After three long nights of debate and testimony, the Westminster City Council voted 5-2 to approve the controversial plan to convert a large swath of farmland into the 2,350-home Uplands development. Councilors voted at the end of their Monday meeting, which ran until almost 1 a.m. Tuesday and was […]
Posted inColoradans, Education, Equity, News
Descendants of people displaced to create Denver’s Auraria campus will finally get free college tuition
Abenicio Rael’s mother, Irene, was one of hundreds of people forced to leave their homes in Denver’s oldest neighborhood before it was razed to make way for the Auraria campus in the 1970s. That made him eligible for the Displaced Aurarian Scholarship, though he soon found the limits of its promise of free tuition at […]
Posted inEconomy, Equity, Housing, News
Racial segregation is getting worse in big U.S. cities — except for Colorado Springs
Since 1990, the United States has become more racially diverse—yet during that same period, racial residential segregation has climbed, according to a yearslong analysis by researchers at the University of California’s Othering & Belonging Institute in Berkeley. In Colorado, two cities fall on opposite ends of the spectrum: Denver is “highly segregated” while Colorado Springs […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
SunLit Special: “The Holly” tells the story of Terrance Roberts, his Denver neighborhood and much more
Julian Rubinstein is an award-winning journalist, author and producer. His new non-fiction book, “The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood,” was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in May 2021. Julian’s first non-fiction book, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best […]
Posted inCartoons, Opinion
What’d I Miss?: Street Sm-Art
Myra has missed 30 years of her life, due to a coma, but has found a new friendship with her young neighbor, Ossie. Together, they both are searching for their place in this world. < Previous | Start from the beginning | Next > More cartoons from The Colorado Sun
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Mobile homes are Colorado’s affordable housing crutch. But they’re disappearing as land becomes more precious
In the Aurora mobile-home park where she lived for 16 years, eviction notices kept coming to Petra Bennett’s door — for unauthorized guests, lack of insurance, late rent. They were bogus threats to make the single mother leave. And eventually, she did. In Federal Heights, Karla Lyons’ waitressing wages are eaten up by a constant […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Denver is facing an affordable housing crisis – we all have to look past our own front door
A stable, affordable place to call home is the foundation for successful families and communities. In our region, that’s becoming harder and harder — but we know how to create homes that offer people the opportunities they deserve. Denver is changing — some neighborhoods in a matter of months. Populations are swelling, prices are increasing, […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Carman: The Millennial caucus just might have the solution to runaway gentrification
I’m pretty sure I unintentionally helped gentrify a neighborhood in the 1970s before gentrification was a word. My then-husband and I bought a house in a tired neighborhood in Vancouver, Wash., cleaned, painted and refurbished it, and sold it a year later for a 19 percent profit. That put another $6,000 in our pockets to […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: How did gentrification become a crisis? Consider the homebuilding process
Housing in America is broken and has led to a gentrification/displacement crisis. How did this happen? We simply no longer build enough units to meet demand and keep prices affordable for most Americans. The house price to median household income ratio in this country was 2.2-to-1 before the 1970s. Over time the average rose to […]