The Colorado Aerotropolis: A Tale of Two Visions

In 2011 the City and County of Denver signed a $1 million agreement with MXD Development Strategists from British Colombia to produce a plan for “Airport City Denver.” The following year, at the 2012 Airport Cities Global Conference, 800 attendees from over 30-countries heard Michael Hancock and the Denver International Airport (DEN) staff present the idea. Mayor Hancock said,

“We have a unique opportunity to take our region’s biggest economic engine and spark a new era of growth that will transform Metro Denver and revitalize the regional economy,” (emphasis added) said Hancock in his speech. “We will create a development that thrives on the airport’s natural synergy, attracting business and jobs that benefit from a close relationship to the airport and its inherent access to national and international markets.”

Well, that speech was given almost seven years ago, but few of the businesses and jobs that the “Airport City Denver” promised have materialized. That is not because it was a bad idea, nor was it an unrealistic vision. In fact, if anything, the economic growth and prosperity of fully exploiting Denver International Airport for the benefit of the surrounding communities was undersold. The greater Denver area has missed out on thousands of jobs, millions of tax dollars for our valued local services and rising property values that galvanizing the DEN opportunity could bring.

Let’s face it: DEN is a great asset, but we just don’t get as much economic bang for the airport investment buck as we should.

In this blog I am going to try to explore why I think this has happened and what we, as a community, should be doing to get ‘Airport City Denver’ on the move again.  

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