Denver's New High-Density Neighborhood

Denver city leaders backed new neighborhood plan, the River Mile, designed to transform the city center and the South Platte riverfront.

The new plan currently includes housing for upwards of 15,000 residents, skyscrapers 59-stories tall, and a focus on new public parks, space, building sizes and land uses. Writes Curbed, "River Mile wants to maximize its connections to already existing light rail stations, and proposes parking maximums rather than minimums to encourage residents to use public transportation, biking, and walking," adding that such projects are part of a nationwide trend to "reclaim waterfronts" from industrial use, and to increase density.

With an evolving urban core, plans for a proposed 90-story skyscraper, and speculations that the city could be an Amazon HQ2 frontrunner and a potential future Olympics host site, Denver, Colorado, is a mid-size U.S. city with New York-sized ambitions. But despite increasing density and rapid population growth, there are still sections of the Mile High City where 1980s-style surface parking lots—not trendy mixed-use developments—reign supreme.

Read more