Posted inColoradans, Education, Environment, Equity, News, Outdoors

Plastic hippos are out. Colorado playgrounds are getting a more natural makeover.

Before 2016, Grant Frontier Park was touted as a place where prospectors first discovered gold in the South Platte River near Denver. No one seemed to care.  “I never saw anyone in the park,” Gordon Robertson, director of planning design and construction at Denver Parks and Recreation Department, said of the three-block long park that […]

Posted inEnvironment, Health, News

There’s a shady (and leafy) divide between Denver’s whiter, wealthier neighborhoods and everyone else

Summer days are for shady strolls down a tree-lined street and picnics under a canopy of leaves. But how many trees — and how much shade — a person can find in their neighborhood might depend on how rich it is.  Not everyone has equal access to trees and the endless benefits they provide, especially […]

Posted inEnvironment, Health, Outdoors, Water

To bridge the cultures of Mexico’s border region and a neglected Colorado neighborhood, just add water

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, MEXICO — Under the red girders of a nondescript toll bridge, waves gently lapped coarse sands in a gritty corner of this northwestern Mexican border city.   “There is usually no water and vegetation, and the ground looks like this,” local conservationist Alejandra Calvo-Fonesca said, gesturing toward the dusty shoreline of the […]

Posted inColoradans, Growth, News, Politics and Government

As development plans flood Denver’s poorest neighborhood, fear of gentrification lingers

Carolyn Chavez has called Denver’s Sun Valley neighborhood home for 66 years. It’s where she raised six children, and eventually, five of her 10 grandchildren. For decades, she watched friends and family move elsewhere; neighborhood children go off to college or fall into the grips of addiction. She was there when the new Mile High […]