2023
STATEMENT:
When I moved to Denver from Tucson, Arizona, I thought every neighborhood was upper middle class because so many yards had grass and trees. This was a luxury reserved for the wealthy and golf courses of the desert.
Historically racist policies have created barriers to home ownership and economic mobility for Black and Latino individuals, resulting in their disproportionate concentration in densely populated and polluted neighborhoods.
Redlining, a practice employed by the federal government in the 1930s, involved the assessment of neighborhoods to assist mortgage lenders in identifying areas deemed risky. Through the creation of maps by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation, neighborhoods with higher populations of African Americans and immigrants were labeled as "hazardous" and shaded in red. This discriminatory practice and other segregationist housing policies of that era directly suppressed home ownership rates.
Colorado has the 11th-lowest homeownership rate in the US, coming in at 64.9% home ownership. The disparity in property ownership is closely linked to the unequal distribution of tree cover, as privately owned land grants individuals the authority and means to plant more trees.
In a study of 108 urban areas nationwide, the formerly redlined neighborhoods of nearly every city studied were hotter than the non-redlined neighborhoods, some by almost 13°F. The formerly redlined and the highest-rated neighborhoods in Denver have a difference of 12.2°F.
Denver experiences between 12 to 17 days a year at or above 90°F. By 2050 Denver will have a range of about 22 to 41 days a year at or above 90°F. As climate change continues, extreme heat will increasingly claim more American lives each year than any other weather-related disaster.
Cities are not natural jungles that evolve through natural selection. They are consciously designed by people, And often planned with specific individuals in mind, excluding the needs of everyone else in the process.
So I guess Denver isn't all upper-middle class. But it does seem to cater to them.