In January, the LoDoNA Board sent an email to our members and many other people in our community with a web link to our online community survey. Our goal was to understand which issues and activities are most important to the people in our community, so that we could make sure that we focus on them—that we are working on the right stuff.
We received 168 responses to the survey. Some facts about the people who responded—they are older (81% are age 50 or older), 81% are married or part of a committed couple. but only 5% have children under 18 living at home. Our respondents are long-time residents–57% have lived in LoDo for 7 years or more; many have lived here over 20 years (16%).
When asked why they decided to live in LoDo or what are the best aspects of living here, people told us that the most important reason was walkability and convenience—they don’t need a car to get to restaurants, grocery stores and essential services, theaters, music and sports events. Many people also value easy access to the A-line to the airport, the free mall ride, light rail and our walking and bike paths along Cherry Creek and the South Platte.
LoDo residents are drawn to the bustling energy of urban living, the variety of nearby activities and nightlife. Many also mentioned LoDo’s historic architecture and charm, plus the strong sense of community with friendly neighbors and a connected, busy urban lifestyle.
When asked about the disadvantages of living here, people said that LoDo has lost some of its appeal, especially since the COVID pandemic. Their sense of personal safety has declined, there is less positive vitality and energy on the streets, there are fewer restaurants and other businesses to choose from and the overall cleanliness of our streets and public spaces has declined as well.
Crime is the most frequently mentioned issue in LoDo living—many residents feel unsafe, especially after dark. We are very aware of open drug use, petty crimes like vandalism and graffiti and the threat of gun violence in our community. There is also strong sense of frustration about the homeless population in LoDo—many complained about their aggressive behavior, open drug sales and use, and untreated indigent people having active mental health crises on our streets. Some expressed a strong feeling that the city prioritizes homeless services over the needs of law-abiding residents and businesses.
Other concerns expressed include unhappiness about the sad state of our streets and sidewalks, which provokes a feeling that LoDo has been neglected compared to other Denver neighborhoods. Issues include general disrepair, trash, litter and broken glass, dog waste left on sidewalks and trails, and poorly maintained public spaces with dead or dying trees. Rental scooters that are routinely driven on our sidewalks and abandoned carelessly were also highlighted.
Survey responses also called for better public transportation and solutions to the parking problem—replacing on-street parking with bike lanes and express bus lanes has made LoDo parking more expensive and harder to find. Lack of affordable parking makes LoDo feel far less accessible to outside visitors and shoppers.
LoDo people also voiced their concern about gratuitous noise or noise pollution—loud cars and motorcycles, aggressive driving and even street racing were mentioned. Other noise complaints included construction noise on 16th Street and late-night noise from bar closing time “out crowds” and rowdy crowds in general.
Our survey also asked people to rate several specific actions and issues on a 5-point scale from (1) Not Important to (5) Most Important.
The highest scoring individual questions were:
4.6 Improve safety—increase police patrols, presence, visibility
4.4 Homeless/indigent population—increase proactive police and social service intervention for people in crisis and needing medical or psychological care
4.2 Reduce disturbances, noise—restrict e-bikes and e-scooters riding on sidewalks, abandoned haphazardly, speeding and reckless riding
4.2 Improve our physical environment—increase, improve, maintain our tree canopy
4.1 Promote healthy local businesses—restaurants, retail, personal services, others
4.0 Improve our sense of safety—increase prosecution of vandalism, graffiti, harassment
4.0 Improve our physical environment—repair, rebuild sidewalks, curbs, access ramps
4.0 Improve our physical environment: add more planters, flowers on streets, sidewalks
In reviewing the survey results, it’s great to be reminded that we have a large community of loyal people who are still enthusiastic about the best aspects of living in LoDo. But we also recognize that LoDoNA and our Board must become much better advocates for our community on the issues that diminish the quality of life for our residents, employers and visitors.
As our Board sets priorities and makes plans for the rest of this year, we accept the responsibility to become more effective advocates on the issues that are important to you—safety, police presence, active intervention with the homeless, reining-in rental scooters, improving our streets and sidewalks, cleaning up and beautifying our environment.
We will continue to organize social events that connect our neighborhood—we know that a successful community is built of neighbors who know, like and trust one another. And we also know that if LoDo is to truly thrive and fulfill its promise, people must feel safe living, working and playing here.
Well I guess we must wait and see… your words are fine but what will the follow through look like and when? We are asked continuously for more money in taxes, restaurants charges, sidewalk repairs…but little accountability or visible feeling of improvements… Life in Denver has really changed since we located here in 2011. Denver needs a little more DOGE in our local government in my opinion! Free does not work… I have said it many times! Everyone that accepts tax payer money should be accountable and do “their fair share”and those that spend tax payer money should be fully transparent! I have spoken about safety in Denver since before COVID…well???
To address the previously-left comment – we absolutely do not need more DOGE anywhere near LoDo.
I’m a younger guy who moved downtown because I was looking to foster in my life a local sense of community and interdependence. The last thing we need is to continue capitalizing out all the best aspects of Denver for a financial respite which, frankly, is not a locally-caused issue. The city, public authorities, and local community organizations here are staffed with some of the hardest-working, most underpaid, upstanding fellow citizens I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet, such as the attendees of last week’s Inter-Neighborhood Cooperative (INC) Zoning and Planning meeting. People who take an active role in the community are the only reason anything gets done at all.
To address some of the points made by this survey, I agree that safety is a major factor in the QoL of downtown residents. Regarding the oft-interconnected nature of crime, drug use, and homelessness downtown, the traditional NIMBY response in Denver has not been fruitful for us. This is indeed due to systemic issues which concern a variety of wider topics including human and citizen rights, lack of enforcement, and the multiple push/pull factors which draw this kind of activity to our area. To be clear – I believe in strong enforcement of the law. But that is an expensive solution and doesn’t actually address the source of the issue. It just takes more and more tax dollars away from the valuable research and action initiatives whose goals are ultimately aligned with those of our community – to make Denver a nice place to live.
I think we should consider these problems as being connected, and identify the sources. To be honest, I have a hunch it’s related to the reasons our property values (and taxes, etc) are so high. We live in a highly centralized economic landscape, and it takes more and more money to be able to survive here as the years go on. What we need is to move away from our dependence on bringing in larger and larger entities which extract value from our neighborhoods by pricing out individuals. In other words, I think the city should make a concerted effort to provide for the material needs of locals by encouraging *local* business growth through the issuance of licenses and planning prioritization. Our solution here is not more massive corporate buildings staffed by people who live in the suburbs and soak up valuable space – parking space, living space (which increases our property values as residential supply dwindles), local commercial space (for example, mixed-use zoning initiatives which provide locally-produced goods and services), and ‘life space.’ We willingly destroyed the downtown area around 16th Street in the 60’s (https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/mpq8jb/before_and_after_our_esteemed_urban_planners/) at the influence of large auto companies and high-consumption businesses which needed the space so they could…sell more stuff. That doesn’t benefit us, and we’ve reaped what we’ve sowed by depending more and more on unstable external actors to provide for our needs. It’s not sustainable.
If we want to live in a downtown that people want to visit, more parking isn’t going to be the solution. People don’t come to Denver because there’s room for them; they come here because there are things going on, such as events put on by local groups including theater, music, and culture. *That’s* what needs to be developed, in conjunction with enforcing safety city-wide, so we can draw other *locals* here to engage with our community. We *don’t* need more skiing tourists to blow money on expensive goods and services provided by large national retail chains which, as I previously mentioned, just drives up our property values and consequent taxes. Bike lanes and scooter programs allow local mobility, which encourages people to want to live or visit here, and for locals to frequent Denver businesses.
The city should be more focused on creating spaces where small local groups can have an impact and begin to generate their own revenue streams which will be reinvested back into the community. I say we stop designing our infrastructure around the needs of big multinational corps who don’t care about our city and don’t encourage its well-being. We’re about to lose the last of the city’s ‘community pharmacies’ which will be supplanted entirely by CVS and Walgreens chains. How many people here go to the multiple high-end retail chain outlets around the city on a regular day? Nah, I’d much rather attend community mixers, have bars cheap and accessible enough to have ‘regulars,’ public spaces where interaction is encouraged, and efficient implementation of our public infrastructure. It sounds more expensive, and in the short-term it may well be, but these megacorps will run us all out of our homes then ditch the city anyway, taking jobs with them. I would know – I used to work in Gary, IN. If we’re going to avoid the fate of that unfortunate town, we need to stop relying so much on massively extractive business models to provide for us and re-invest in our local character. More parking and police enforcement isn’t going to do that. PEOPLE will do that, if we would just give them the opportunity.
Thanks for reading. I look forward to a more economically healthy framework of city administration, infrastructure, and community.